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BY 





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AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 




AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


BY 


JAMES M. BARRIEo 



NEW YORK: 

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17 TO 27 VANDEWATER STREET. 



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AULD LIGHT IDYLLS, 


CHAPTER I. 

THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 

Early this morning I opened a window in my school-house 
in the glen of Quharity, awakened by the shivering of a starv- 
ing sparrow against the frosted glass. As the snowy sash 
creaked in my hand, he made off to the water-spout that sus- 
pends its tangles of ice over a gaping tank, and, rebound- 
ing from that, with a quiver of his little black breast, bobbed 
through the net-work of wire and joined a few of his fellows 
m a forlorn hop round the hen-house in search of food. Two 
days ago my hilarious bantam cock, saucy to the last, my 
cheeriest companion, was found frozen in his own water-trough, 
the corn-saucer in three pieces by his side. Since then I have 
taken the hens into the house. At meal-times they litter the 
hearth with each other’s feathers; but for the most part they 
give little trouble, roosting on the rafters of the low-roofed 
kitchen among staves and fishing-rods. 

Another white blanket has been spread upon the glen since 
I looked out last night; for over the same wilderness of snow 
that has met my gaze for a week, I see the steading of Waster 
Lunny sunk deeper into the waste. The school-house, I sup- 
pose, serves similarly as a snow-mark for the people at the 
farm. Unless that is Waster Lunny ’s grieve foddering the 
cattle in the snow, not a living thing is visible. The ^ost- 
like hills that pen in the glen have ceased to echo to the sharp 
crack of the sportsman’s gun, so clear in the frosty air as to 
be a warning to every rabbit and partridge in the valley; and 
only giant Catlaw shows here and there a black ridge, rearing 
his head at the entrance to the glen and struggling ineffect* 
ually to cast off his shroud. Most wintery sign of all, I 
think, as I close the window hastily, is the open farm-stile, its 



6 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


a distance a vibration as of a tuning-fork; a robin perhaps 
alighting on the wire of a broken fence. 

In the warm kitchen, where I dawdle over my breakfast, 
the widowed bantam hen has perched on the back of my 
drowsy cat. It is needless to go through the form of opening 
the school to-day; for, with the exception of Waster Lunny^s 
girl, I have had no scholars for nine days. Yesterday she 
announced that there would be no more schooling till it was 
fresh, “ as she wasna cornin’;’^ and indeed, though the smoke 
from the farm chimneys is a pretty prospect for a snowed-up 
school-master, the trudge between the two houses must be 
weary work for a bairn. As for the other children, who have 
to come from all parts of the hills and glen, 1 may not see 
them for weeks. Last year the school was practically deserted 
for a month. A pleasant outlook, with the March examina- 
tions staring me in the face, and an inspector fresh from Ox- 
ford. I wonder what he would say if he saw me to-day dig- 
ging myself out of the school-house with the spade I now keep 
for "the purpose in my bedroom. 

The kail grows brittle from the snow in my dank and cheer- 
less garden. A crust of bread gathers timid pheasants round 
me. The robins, I see, have made the coal-house their home. 
Waster Lunny’s dog never barks without rousing my sluggish 
cat to a Joyful response. It is Dutch courage with the bird* 
and beasts of the glen, hard driven for food; but I look at- 
tentively for them in these long forenoons, and they have be- 
gun to regard me as one of themselves. My breath freezes, 
despite my pipe, as I peer from the door; and with a fort- 
night-old newspaper I retire to the ingle-nook. The friend- 
liest thing I have seen to-day is the well-smoked ham sus- 
pended from my kitchen rafters. It was a gift from the farm 
of Tullin, with a load of peats, the day before the snow began 
to fall. I doubt if I have seen a cart since. 

This afternoon I was the not altogether passive spectator of 
a curious scene in natural history. My feet incased in stout 
“ tackety boots, I had waded down two of Waster Lunny’s 
fields to the glen burn; in summer the never-failing larder 
from which, with wriggling worm or garish fly, I can any 
morning whip a savory breakfast; in the winter-time the only 
thing in the valley that defies the ice-king’s chloroform. I 
watched the water twisting black and solemn through the 
snow, the ragged ice on its edge proof of the toughness of the 
struggle with the frost, from which it has, after all, crept only 
half victorious. A bare wild rose-bush on the further bank 
was violently agitated, and then there ran from its root a 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


V 


black-headed rat with wings. Such was the general effect. I 
was not less interested when my startled eyes divided this phe- 
nomenon into its component parts, and recognized in the dis- 
turbance on the opposite bank only another fierce struggle 
among the hungry animals for existence; they need no pro- 
fessor to teach them the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. 
A weasel had gripped a water-hen (whit-rit and beltie they are 
called in these parts) cowering at the root of the rose-bush, 
and was being dragged down the bank by the terrified bird, 
which made for the water as its only chance of escape. In 
less disadvantageous circumstances the weasel would have 
made short work of his victim; but as he only had the bird by 
the tail, the prospects of the combatants were equalized. It 
was the tug-of-war being played with a life as the stakes. “ If 
I do not reach the water,’’ was the argument that went on in 
the heaving little breast of the one, “I am a dead bird.” 
“ If this water-hen,” reasoned the other, ‘‘ reaches the burn, 
my supper vanishes with her.” Down the sloping bank the 
hen had distinctly the best of it, but after that came a yard of 
level snow, and here she tugged and screamed in vain. I had 
so far been an unobserved spectator; but my sympathies were 
with the beltie, and, thinking it. high time to interfere, I 
jumped into the water. The water-hen gave one mighty final 
tug and toppled into the burn, while the weasel viciously 
showed me his teeth, and then stole slowly up the bank to the 
rose-bush, whence, “ girning,” he watched me lift his ex- 
hausted victim from the water, and set off with her for the 
school-house. Except for her dragged tail, she already looks 
wonderfully composed, and so long as the frost holds I shall 
have little difficulty in keeping her with me. On Sunday I 
found a frozen sparrow, whose heart had almost ceased to 
beat, in the disused pig-sty, and put him for warmth into my 
breast-pocket. The ungrateful little scrub bolted without a 
word of thanks about ten minutes afterward, to the alarm of 
my cat, which had not known his whereabouts. 

I am alone in the school-house. On just such an evening 
as this last year my desolation drove me to Waster Lunny, 
where I was storm-stayed for the night. The recollection de- 
cides me to court my own warm hearth, to challenge my right 
hand again to a game at the dambrod ” against my left. I do 
not look the school -house door at nights; for even a highway- 
man (there is no such luck) would be received with open arms, 
and I doubt if there be a barred door in all the glen. But it 
is cozier to put on the shutters. The road to Thrums has 
lost itself miles down the valley. I wonder what they are do- 


8 


AULD LICET IDYLLS. 


ing out in the world. Though I am the Free Church pre- 
centor in Thrums (ten pounds a year, and the little town is 
five miles away), they have not seen me for three weeks. A 
packman whom I thawed yesterday at my kitchen fire tells 
me that last Sabbath only tne Auld Lichts held service. Other 
people realized that they were snowed *up. Far up the glen, 
after it twists out of view, a manse and half a dozen thatched 
cottages that are there may still show a candle-light, and the 
crumbling grave-stones keep cold vigil round the gray old kirk. 
Heavy shadows fade into the sky to the north. A flake trem- 
bles against the window; but it is too cold for much snow to- 
night. The shutters bar the outer world from the school- 
house. 


CHAPTER II. 

THEUMS. 

Thrums is the name I give here to the handful of house* 
jumbled together in a cup, which is the town nearest the 
school-house. Until twenty years ago its every other room, 
ear then-floored and showing the rafters overhead, had a hand- 
loom, and hundreds of weavers lived and died Thoreaus “ ben 
the hoose without knowing it. In those days the cup over- 
flowed and left several houses on the top of the hill, where 
their cold skeletons still stand. The road that climbs from 
the square, which is Thrums’ heart, to the north is so steep 
and straight, that in a sharp frost children hunker at the top 
and are blown down with a roar and a rush on rails of ice. 
At such times, when viewed from the cemetery where the trav- 
eler from the school-house gets his first glimpse of the little 
town. Thrums is but two church steeples and a Mozen red- 
stone patches standing out of a snow-heap. One of the steeples 
belongs to the new Free Kirk, and the other to the parish 
church, both of which the first Auld Licht minister I knew 
ran past when he had not time to avoid them by taking a back 
wynd. He has but a pocket edition of a man, who grew two 
inches after he was called; but he was so full of the cure of 
souls, that he usually scudded to it with his coat-tails quarrel- 
ing behind him. His successor, whom I knew better, was a 
greater scholar, and said, “ Let us see what this is in the 
original Greek,” as an ordinary man might invite a friend to 
dinner; but he never wrestled as Mr. Dishart, his successor, 
did with the pulpit cushions, nor flung himself at the pulpit 
door. Nor was he so “ hiv i on the Bool^” as Lang Tammai^ 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


9 


the precentor, expressed it; meaning that he did not bang the 
Bible with his fist as much as might have been wished. 

Thrums had been known to me for years before I succeeded 
the captious dominie at the school-house in the glen. The 
dear old soul who originally induced me to enter the Auld 
Licht kirk by lamenting the ‘‘ want of Christ in the min- 
ister’s discourses was my first landlady. For the last ten years 
of her life she was bedridden, and only her interest in the 
kirk kept her alive. Her case against the minister was that 
he did not call to denounce her sufficiently often for her sins, 
her pleasure being to hear him bewailing her on his knees as 
one who was probably past praying for. She was as sweet 
and pure a woman as 1 ever knew, and had her wishes been 
horses, she would have sold them and kept (and looked after) 
a minister herself. 

There, are few Auld Licht communities in Scotland nowa- 
days — perhaps because people are now so well off, for the 
most devout Auld Lichts were always poor, and their last 
years were generally a grim struggle with the work-house. 
Many a heavy-eyed, back-bent weaver has won his Waterloo in 
Thrums fighting on his stumps. There are a score or two of 
them left still, for, though there are now two factories in the 
town, the clatter of the hand-loom can yet be heard, and they 
have been starving themselves of late until they have saved up 
enough money to get another minister. 

The square is packed away in the center of Thrums, and 
irregularly built little houses squeeze close to it like chickens 
clustering round a hen. Once the Auld Lichts held property 
in the square, but other denominations have bought them out 
of it, and now few of them are even to be found in the main 
streets that make for the rim of the cup. They live in the 
kirk-wynd, or in retiring little houses the builder of which 
does not seem to have remembered that it is a good plan to 
have a road leading to houses until after they were finished. 
Narrow paths straggling round gardens, some of them with 
stunted gates, which it is commoner to step over than to open, 
have been formed to reach these dwellings, but in winter they 
are running streams, and then the best way to reach a house 
such as that of Tammy Mealmaker the wright, pronounced 
wir-icht, is over a broken dike and a pig-sty. Tammy, who 
died a bachelor, had been soured in his youth by a disappoint- 
ment in love, of which he spoke but seldom. She lived far 
away in a town to which he had wandered in the days when 
his blood ran hot, and they became engaged. Unfortunately, 
however, Tammy forgot her name, and he never knew the ad- 


10 


AtLD IICHT IDYLLS. 


drees; so there the affair ended, to his silent grief. He ad 
mitted himself, over his snuff-mull of an evening, that he was 
a very ordinary character; but a certain halo of horror was 
cast over the whole family by their connection with little Joey 
Sutie, who was pointed at in Thrums as the laddie that 
whistled when he went past the minister. Joey became a ped- 
dler, and was found dead one raw morning dangling over a 
high wall within a few miles of Thrums. When climbing the 
dike his pack had slipped back, the strap round his neck, and 
choked him. 

You could generally tell an Auld Licht in Thrums when 
you passed him; his dull, vacant face wrinkled over a heavy 
wob. He wore tags of yam round his trousers beneath the 
knee, that looked like ostentatious garters, and frequently his 
jacket of corduroy was put on beneath his waistcoat. If he 
was too old to carry his load on his back, he wheeled it on a 
creaking barrow, and when he met a friend they said, ‘‘ Ay, 
Jeames,’’ and “ Ay, Davit, and then could think of nothing 
else. AtHong intervals they passed through the square, dis- 
appearing or coming into sight round the town-house which 
stands on the south side of it, and guards the entrance to a 
steep brae that leads down and then twists up on its lonely 
way to the county town. I like to linger over the square, for 
it was from an upper window in it that I got to know 
Thrums. On Saturday nights, when the Auld Licht young 
men came into the square dressed and washed, to look at the 
young women errand-going, and to laugh some time after- 
ward to each, other, it presented a glare of light; and here 
even came the cheap jacks and the Fair Circassian, and the 
showman, who, besides playing “ The Mountain Maid and 

The Shepherd’s Bride,” exhibited part of the tail of Ba- 
laam’s ass, the helm of Noah’s ark, and the tartan plaid in 
which Flora McDonald wrapped Prince Charlie. More select 
entertainment, such as Shuffle Kitty’s wax-work, whose motto 
was, ‘‘ A rag to pay, and in you go,” were given in a hall whose 
approach was by an outside stair. On the Muckle Friday, the 
fair for which children storing their pocket-money would ac- 
cumulate sevenpence-half penny in less than six months, the 
square was crammed with gingerbread-stalls, bag-pipers, fid- 
dlers, and monstrosities who were gifted with second sight. 
There was a bearded man, who had neither legs nor arms, and 
was drawn through the streets in a small cart by four dogs. 
By looking at you he could see all the clock-work inside, as 
could a boy who was led about by his mother at the end of a 
string. Every Friday there was the market, when a dozen 


AtLD LIGHT IDTLLS. 


11 


ramshackle carts containing vegetables and cheap crockery 
filled the center of the square, resting in line on their shafts. 
A score of farmers’ wives or daughters in old-world garments 
squatted against the town-house within walls of butter on cab- 
bage-leaves, eggs and chickens. Toward evening the voice of 
the buckie-man shook the square, and riyal fish-cadgers, terri- 
ble characters who ran races on horseback, screamed libels at 
each other over a fruiterer’s barrow. Then it was time for 
douce Auld Lichts to go home, draw their stools near the fire, 
spread their red handkerchiefs over their legs to prevent their 
trousers getting singed, and read their ‘‘ Pilgrim’s Progress.’^ 
In my school-house, how^ever, I seem to see the square most 
readily in the Scotch mist which so often filled it, loosening 
the stones and choking the drains. There was then no rattle 
of rain against my window-sill, nor dancing of diamond drops 
on the roofs, but blobs of water grew on the panes of glass to 
reel heavily down them. Then the sodden square would have 
shed abundant tears if you could have taken it in your hands 
and wrung it like a dripping cloth. At such a time the 
square would be empty but for one vegetable-cart left in the 
care of a lean colly, which, tied to the wheel, whined and 
shivered underneath. Pools of water gather in the coarse 
sacks, that have been spread over the potatoes and bundles of 
greens, which turn to manure in their lidless barrels. The 
ayes of the whimpering dog never leave a black close over 
which hangs the sign of the Bull, probably the refuge of the 
hawker. At long intervals a farmer’s gig rumbles over the 
bumjjy, ill- paved square, or a native, with his head buried in 
his coat, peeps out-of-doors, skurries across the way, and van- 
ishes. Most of the leading shops are here, and the decorous 
d raper ventures a few yards from the pavement to scan the 
skv, or note the effect of his new arrangement in scarfs. 
Planted against his door is the butcher, Henders Todd, white- 
aproned, and with a knife in his hand, gazing interestedly at 
the draper, for a mere man may look at an elder. The tin- 
smith brings out his steps, and, mounting them, stealthily re- 
moves the saucepans and pepper-pots that dangle on a wire 
above his sign-board. Pulling to his door, he shuts out the 
foggy light that showed in his solder-strewn work-shop. The 
square is deserted again. A bundle of sloppy parsley slips 
from the hawker’s cart and topples over the wheel in driblets. 
The puddles in the sacks overflow and rim together. The 
dog has twisted his chain round a barrel, and yelps sharply. 
As if in response comes a rush of other dogs. A terrified fox 
terrier tears across the sq.uare with half a score of mongrels, 


12 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


the butcher’s mastiff and some collies at his heels; he is doubt- 
less a stranger who has insulted them by his glossy coat. For 
two seconds the square shakes to an invasion of dogs, and 
then, again, there is only one dog in sight. 

No one will admit the Scotch mist. It ‘‘ looks saft.” The 
tinsmith wudna wonder but v/hat it was makkin for rain.” 
Tammas Haggart and Pete Lunan dander into sight bare- 
headed, and have to stretch out their hands to discover what 
the weather is like. By and by they come to a standstill to 
discuss the immortality of the soul, and then they are looking 
silently at the Bull. Neither speaks, but they begin to move 
toward the inn at the same time, and its door closes on them 
before they know what they are doing. A few minutes after- 
ward Jinny Dundas, who is Pete’s wife, runs straight for the 
Bull in her short gown, which is tucked up very high, and 
emerges with her husband soon afterward. Jinny is voluble, 
but Pete says nothing. Tammas follows later, putting his 
head out at the door first, and looking cautiously about him 
to see if any one is in sight. Pete is a U. P. , and may be left 
to his fate, but the Auld Licht minister thinks that though it 
be hard work, Tammas is worth saving. 

To the Auld Licht of the past there were three degrees of 
damnation — auld kirk, play-acting, chapel. Chapel was the 
name always given to the English Church, of which I am too 
much an Auld Licht myself to care to write even now. To 
belong to the chapel was, in Thrums, to be a Roman Catholic, 
and the boy who fiung a clod of earth at the English minister 
— who called the Sabbath Sunday — or dropped a “ divet ” 
down his chimney, was held to be in the right way. The only 
pleasant story Thrums could tell of the chapel was that its 
steeple once fell. It is surprismg that an English church was 
ever suffered to be built in such a place; though probably the 
county gentry had something to do with it. They traveled 
about too much to be good men. Small though Thrums used 
to be, it had four kirks in all before the Disruption, and then 
another, which split into two immediately afterward. The 
spire of the parish church, known as the auld kirk, commands 
a view of the square, from which the entrance to the kirk- 
yard would be visible, if it were not hidden by the town-house. 
The kirk-yard has long been crammed, and is not now in use, 
but the church is sufficiently large to hold nearly all the con- 
gregations in Thrums. Just at the gate lived Pete Todd, the 
father of Sam’l, a man of whom the Auld Lichts had reason 
to be proud. Pete was an every-day man at ordinary times, 
and was even said, when liis wife, who had been long ill, died. 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


13 

to have clapped his hands and exclaimed, ‘‘ Hip, hip, hur- 
rah!’’ adding only as an after-thought, “ The Lord’s will be 
done.” But midsummer was his great opportunity. Then 
took place the rouping of the seats in the parish church. The 
scene was the kirk itself, and the seats being put up to auction 
were knocked down to the highest bidder. This sometimes 
led to the breaking of the peace. Every person was present 
who was at all particular as to where he sat, and an auctioneer 
was engaged for the day. He rouped the kirk-seats, like po- 
tato-drills, beginning by asking for a bid. Every seat was 
put up at auction separately; for some were much more run 
after than others, and the men were instructed by their wives 
what to bid for. Often the women joined in, and as they bid 
excitedly against one another the church rang with oppro- 
brious epithets. A man would come to the roup late, and 
learn that the seat he wanted had been knocked down. He 
maintained that he had been unfairly treated, or denounced 
the local laird to whom the seat-rents went. If he did not 
get the seat, he would leave the kirk. Then the woman who 
had forestalled him wanted to know what he meant by glar- 
ing at her so, and the auction was interrupted. Another 
member would “ thrip down the throat ” of the auctioneer 
that he had a right to his former seat if he continued to pay 
the same price for it. The auctioneer was screamed at for 
favoring his friends, and at times the roup became so noisy 
that men and women had to be forcibly ejected. Then was 
Pete’s chance. Hovering at the gate, he caught the angry 
people on their way home and took them into his work-shop 
by an outside stair. There he assisted them in denouncing the 
parish kirk, with the view of getting them to forswear it. Pete 
made a good many Auld Lichts in his time out of unpromising 
material. 

Sights were to be witnessed in the parish church at times 
that could not have been made more impressive by the Auld 
Lichts themselves. Here sinful women were grimly taken to 
task by the minister, who, having thundered for a time against 
adultery in general, called upon one sinner in particular to 
stand forth. She had to step forward into a pew near the pul- 
pit, where, alone and friendless, and stared at by the congre- 
gation, she cowered in tears beneath his denunciations. In 
that seat she had to remain during the forenoon service. She 
returned home alone, and had to come back alone to her soli- 
tary seat in the afternoon. All day no one dared to speak to 
her. She was as much an object of contumely as the thieves 
and smugglers whom, in the end of last century, it was the 


14 


AULD LIGHT IDTLL9. 


privilege of Feudal Bailie Wood (as he was called) to whip 
round the square. 

It is nearly twenty years since the gardeners had their last 
** walk in Thrums, and they survived all the other benefit 
societies that walked once every summer. There was a 

weavers’ walk ’’ and five or six others, the “women’s 
walk ” being the most picturesque. These were processions 
of the members of benefit societies through the square and 
wynds, and all the women walked in white, to the number of 
a hundred or more, behind the Tilliedrum band. Thrums hav- 
ing in those days no band of its own. 

From the north-west corner of the square a narrow street 
isets off, jerking this way and that as if uncertain what point 
to make for. Here lurks the post-office, which had once the 
reputation of being as crooked in its ways as the street itself. 

A railway line runs into Thrums now. The sensational 
days of the post-office were when the letters were conveyed 
officially in a creaking old cart from Tilliedrum. The “ pony ” 
had seen better days than the cart, and always looked as if he 
were just on the point of succeeding in running away from it. 
Hooky Crewe was driver; so called because an iron hook was 
his substitute for a right arm; Bobbie Proctor, the black- 
smith, made the hook and fixed it in. Crewe suffered from 
rheumatism, and when he felt it coming on he stayed at home. 
Sometimes his cart came undone in a snow-drift, when Hooky, 
extricated from the fragments by some chance wayfarer, was 
deposited with his mail-bag (of which he always kept a grip 
by the hook) in a farm-house. It was his boast that his letters 
always reached their destination eventually. They might be 
a long time about it, but “ slow and sure ” was his motto. 
Hooky emphasized his “ slow a7id sure ” by taking a snuff. 
He was a godsend to the post-mistress, for to his failings or the 
infirmities of his gig were charged all delays. 

At the time I write of, the posting of the letter took as long 
and was as serious an undertaking as the writing. That 
means a good deal, for many of the letters were written to 
dictation by the Thrums school-master, Mr. Fleemister, who 
belonged to the Auld Kirk. He was one of the few persons in 
the community who looked upon the dispatch of his letters by 
the post-mistress as his right, and not a favor on her part; 
there was a long-standing feud between them accordingly. 
After a. few tumblers of Widow Stables’ treacle-beer — in the 
concoction of which she was the acknowledged mistress for 
miles around — the school-master would sometimes go the 
lengths of hinting that he could get the post-mistress dis- 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


15 


missed any day. This mighty power seemed to rest on a 
knowledge of “ steamed ” letters. Thrums had a high re- 
spect for the school-master; but among themselves the weav- 
ers agreed that, even if he did write to the government, Lizzie 
Harrison, the post-mistress, would refuse to transmit the letter. 
The more shrewd ones among us kept friends with both parties; 
for, unless you could write ‘‘ writ-hand,^’ you could not com- 
pose a letter without the school-master’s assistance; and, un- 
less Lizzie was so courteous as to send it to its destination, it 
might lie — or so it was thought — much too long in the box. 
A letter addressed by the school-master found great disfavor 
in Lizzie’s eyes. You might explain to her that you had 
merely called in his assistance because you were a poor hand 
at writing yourself, but that was held no excuse. Some ad- 
dressed their own envelopes with much labor, and sought to 
palm off the whole as their handiwork. It reflects on the 
post-mistress somewhat that she had generally found them out 
by next day, when, if in a specially vixenish mood, she did not 
hesitate to upbraid them for their perfidy. 

To post a letter you did not merely saunter to the post- 
office and drop it into the box. The cautious correspondent 
first went into the shop and explained to Lizzie how matters 
stood. She kept what she called a book-seller’s shop as well 
as the post-office; but the supply of books corresponded ex- 
actly to the lack of demand for them, and her chief trade was 
in knickknacks, from marbles and money-boxes up to con- 
certinas. If he found the post-mistress in an amiable mood, 
which was only now and then, the caller led up craftily to the 
object of his visit. Having discussed the weather and the 
potato disease, he explained that his sister Mary, whom Lizzie 
would remember, had married a fishmonger in Dundee. The 
fishmonger had lately started on himseK and was doing well. 
They had four children. The youngest had had a severe at- 
tack of measles. No news had been got of Mary for twelve 
months; and Annie, his other sister, who lived in Thrums, 
had been at him of late for not writing. So he had written a 
few lines; and, in fact, he had the letter with him. The letter 
was then produced, and examined by the post-mistress. If 
the address was in the school-master’s handwriting, she pro- 
fessed her inability to read it. Was this a ^ or an ^ or an if 
was that a ^ or a S This was a cruel revenge on Lizzie’s 
part; for the sender of the letter was completely at her 
mercy. The school-master’s name being tabooed in her pres- 
ence, he was unable to explain that the writing was not his 
own; and as for deciding between the f s and Vb, he could no^ 


16 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


do it. Eventually he would be directed to put the letter into 
the box. They would do their best with it, Lizzie said, but 
in a voice that suggested how little hope she had of her efforts 
to decipher it proving successful. 

There was an opinion among some of the people that the 
letter should not be stamped by the sender. The proper thing, 
to do was to drop a penny for the stamp into the box along 
with the letter, and then Lizzie would see that it was all 
right. Lizzie’s acquaintance with the handwriting of every 
person in the place who could write gave her a great advan- 
tage. You would perhaps drop into her shop some day to 
make a purchase, when she would calmly produce a letter you 
had posted several days before. In explanation she would tell 
you that you had not put a stamp on it, or that she suspected 
there was money in it, or that you had addressed it to the 
wrong place. I remember an old man, a relative of my own, 
who happened for once in his life to have several letters to 
post at one time. The circumstance was so out of the com- 
mon that he considered it only reasonable to make Lizzie a 
small present. 

Perhaps the post-mistress was belied; but if she did not 

steam ” the letters and confide their tid-bits to favored 
friends of her own sex, it is difficult to see how all the gossip 
got about. The school-master once played an unmanly trick 
on her, with the view of catching her in the act. He was a 
bachelor who had long been given up by all the maids in the 
town. One day, however, he wrote a letter to an imaginary 
lady in the county town, asking her to be his, and going inte 
full particulars about his income, his age, and his prospects. 
A male friend in the secret, at the other end, was to reply, in 
a lady’s handwriting, accepting him, and also giving personal 
particulars. The first letter was written, and an answer ar- 
rived in due course— two days, the school-master said, after 
date. No other person knew of this scheme for the undoing 
of the post-mistress, yet in a very short time the school-mas- 
ter’s coming marriage was the talk of Thrums. Everybody 
became suddenly aware of the lady’s name, of her abode, and 
of the sum of money she was to bring her husband. It was 
even noised abroad that the school-master had represented hig 
age as a good ten years less than it was. Then the school- 
master divulged everything. To his mortification, he was not 
quite believed. All the proof he could bring forward to sup- 
port his story was this: that time would show whether he 
got married or not. Foolish man! this argument was met by 
another, which was accepted at once; the lady had jilted the 


ArLD LI€HT IDYLLS. 


17 


school-master. Whether this explanation came from the post- 
office, who shall say? But so long as he lived the school- 
master was twitted about the lady v(ho threw hdm over. He 
took his revenge in two ways. He wrote and posted letters 
exceedingly abusive of the post-mistress. The matter might 
be libelous; but then, as he pointed out, she would incrimi- 
nate herself if she ‘‘ brought him up about it. Probably 
Lizzie felt his other insult more. By publishing his suspicions 
of her on every possible occasion he got a few people to seal 
their letters. So bitter was his feeling against her that he was 
even willing to supply the wax. 

They know all about post-offices in Thrums now, and ef en 
jeer at the telegraph-boy’s uniform. In the old days they 
gathered round him when he was seen in the street, and es- 
corted him to his destination in triumph. That, too, was 
after Lizzie had gone the way of all the earth. But perhaps 
they are not even yet as knowing as they think themselves. I 
was told the other day that one of them took o«t a postal 
order, meaning to send the money to a relative, and kept the 
order as a receipt. 

I have said that the town is sometimes full of snow. One 
frosty Saturday, seven years ago, I trudged into it from the 
school-house, and on the Monday morning we could not see 
Thrums anywhere. 

I was in one of the proud two-storied houses in the place, 
and could have shaken hands with my friends without from 
the upper windows. To get out-of-doors you had to walk up- 
stairs. The outlook was a sear of snow f^ing into white hills 
and sky, with the quarry standing out red and ragged to the 
right like a rock in the ocean. 

The Auld Licht manse was gone, but had left its garden- 
trees behind, their lean branches soft with snow. Eoofs were 
humps in the white blanket. The spire of the Established 
Kirk stood up cold and stiff, like a monument to the buried 
inhabitants. 

Those of the natives who had taken the precaution of con- 
veying spades into their houses the night before, which is my 
plan at the school-house, dug themselves out. They hobbled 
cautiously over the snow, sometimes sinking into it to their 
knees, when they stood still and slowly took in the situation. 
It had been snowing more or less for a week, but in a com- 
monplace kind of way, and they had gone to bed thinking all 
was well. This night the snow must have fallen as if the 
heavens had opened up, determined to shake themselvee free 
of it forever. 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


18 

The man who first came to himself and saw what was to be 
done w^as young Henders Eamsay. Henders had no fixed oc- 
cupation, being but an orra man about the place, and the 
best thing known of him is that his mother’s sister was a Bap- 
tist. He neither feared God, man, nor the minister; and all 
the learning he had was obtained from assiduous study of a gro- 
cer’s window. But for one brief day he had things his own 
way in the town, or, speaking strictly, on the top of it. With 
a spade, a broom,- and a pick-ax, which sat lightly on his broad 
shoulders (he was not even back-bent, and that showed him 
no respectable weaver), Henders delved his way to the nearest 
house, which formed one of a row, and addressed the inmates 
down the chimney. They had already been clearmg it at the 
other end, or his words would have been choked. “ You’re 
snawed up. Davit,” cried Henders, in a voice that was entirely 
business-like; “ hae ye a spade?” A conversation ensued up 
and down this unusual channel of communication. The un- 
lucky householder, taking no thought of the morrow, was with- 
out a spade. But if Henders would clear away the snow from 
his door he would be ‘Warra obleeged.” Henders, however, 
had to come to terms first. “ The chairge is saxpence. Davit,” 
he shouted. Then a haggling ensued. Henders must be 
neighborly. A plate of broth, now — or, say, twopence. But 
Henders was obdurate. ‘‘ I’se nae time to argy-bargy wi’ ye. 
Davit. Gin ye’re no willin’ to say saxpence, I’m aff to Will- 
’um Pyatt’s. He’s buried too.’’ So the victim had to make 
up his mind to one of two things: he must either say saxpence 
or remain where he was. 

If Henders was ‘‘ promised,” he took good care that no 
snowed-up inhabitant should perjure himself. He made his 
way to a window first, and, clearmg the snow from the top of 
it, pointed out that he could not conscientiously proceed fur- 
ther until the debt had been paid. ‘‘ Money doon,” he cried, 
as soon as he reached a pane of glass; or, “ Come awa wi’ my 
aaxpence noo.” 

The belief that, this day had come to Henders unexpectedly 
was borne out by the method of the crafty callant. His charges 
varied from sixpence to half a crown, according to the wealth 
and status of his victims; and when, later on, there were rivals 
in the snow, he had the discrimination to reduce his minimum 
fee to threepence. He had the honor of digging out three 
ministers at one shilling, one and threepence, and two shil- 
lings respectively. 

Half a dozen times within the next fortnight the town was 
reburied in snow. This geaerally happened in the night- 


ATJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


19 


time; but the inhabitants were not to be caught unprepared 
again. Spades stood ready to their hands in the morning, and 
they fought their way above ground without Henders Eam- 
say’s assistance. To clear the snow from the narrow wynds 
and pends, however, was a task not to be attempted; and the 
Auld Lichts, at least, rested content when enough light got 
into their work-shops to let them see where their looms stood. 
Wading through beds of snow they did not much mind; but 
they wondered what would happen to their houses when the 
thaw came. 

The thaw was slow in coming. Snow during the night and 
several degrees of frost by day were what Thrums began to 
accept as a revised order of nature. Vainly the Thrums doc- 
tor, whose practice extends into the glens," made repeated at- 
tempts to reach his distant patients, twice driving so far into 
the dreary waste that he could neither go on nor turn back. 
A plowman who contrived to gallop ten miles for him did not 
get home for a week. Between the town, which is nowadays 
an agricultural center of some importance, and the outlying 
farms, communication was cut off for a month; and I heard 
subsequently of one farmer who did not see a human being, 
unconnected with his own farm, for seven weeks. The school- 
house, which I managed to reach only two days behind time, 
was closed for a fortnight, and even in Thrums there was only 
a sprinkling of scholars. 

On Sundays the feeling between the different denominations 
ran high, and the middling good folk who did not go to church 
counted those who did. In the Established Church there was 
a sparse gathering, who waited in vain for the minister. After 
a time it got abroad that a flag of distress was flying from the 
manse, and then they saw that the minister was storm-stayed. 
An office-bearer offered to conduct service; but the others 
present thought they had done their duty and went home. 
The U. P. bell did not ring at all, and the kirk gates were not 
opened. The Free Kirk did bravely, however. The attend- 
ance in the forenoon amounted to seven, including the min- 
ister; but in the afternoon there was a turn-out of upward of 
fifty. How much denominational competition had to do with 
this, none can say; but the general opinion was that this mus- 
ter to afternoon service was a piece of vainglory. Next Sun- 
day all the kirks were on their mettle, and, though the snow 
was drifting the whole day, services were general. It was felt 
tliat after the action of the Free Kirk, the Establisheds and 
the IJ. P.^8 must show what they, too, were capable of. So, 
when the bells rang at eleven o’clock and two, church-goers 


20 


AULT) LIGHT IDYLLS. 


began to pour out of every close. If I remember aright^ tlie 
victory lay with the U. P.’s by two women and a boy. Of 
course, the Auld Lichts mustered in as great force as ever. 
The other kirks never dreamed of competing with them. 
What was regarded as a judgment on the Free Kirk for its 
boastfulness of spirit on the preceding Sunday happened dur- 
ing the forenoon. While the service was taking place a huge 
clod of snow slipped from the roof and fell upright against the 
church door. It was some time before the prisoners could make 
up their minds to leave by the windows. WTiat the Auld 
Lichts would have done in a similar predicament I can not 
even conjecture. 

That was the first warning of the thaw. It froze again; 
there was more snow; the thaw began in earnest, and then 
the streets were a sight to see. There was no traffic to turn 
the snow to slush, and, where it had not been piled up in 
walls a few feet from the houses, it remained in the narrow 
ways till it became a lake. It tried to escape through door- 
ways, when it sunk slowly into the floors. Gentle breezes 
created a ripple on its surface, and strong winds lifted it into 
the air and flung it against the houses. It undermined the 
heaps of clotted snow till they tottered like icebergs and fell to 
pieces. Men made their way through it on stills. Had a 
frost followed, the result would-have been appalling; but there 
was no more frost that winter. A fortnight passed before the 
place looked itself again, and even then congealed snow stood 
doggedly in the streets, while the country roads were like 
newly plowed fields after rain. The heat from large fires soon 
penetrated through roofs of slate and thatch, and it was quite 
a common thing for a man to be flattened to the ground by a 
slithermg of snow from above just as he opened his door. But 
it had seldom more than ten feet to fall. Most interesting of 
all was the novel sensation experienced as Thrums began to 
assume its familiar aspect, and objects so long buried that 
they had been half forgotten came back to view and use. 

Storm -stead shows used to emphasize the severity of a 
Thrums winter. As the name indicates, these were gatherings 
of traveling booths in the winter-time. Half a century ago 
the country was overrun by itinerant showmen, who went their 
different ways in summer, but formed little colonies in the 
cold weather, when they pitched their tents in any empty field 
or disused quarry and huddled together for the sake of warmth; 
not that they got much of it. Not more than five winters ago 
we had a storm-stead show on a small scale; but nowadays the 
farruers are less willing to give these wanderers a camping- 


ACLD LIGHT IHYLLS. 


place, and the people are less easily drawn by fife and drum 
to the entertainments provided. The colony hung together 
until it was starved out, when it trailed itself elsewhere. I 
have often seen it forming. The first arrival would be what 
was popularly known as “ SamT Mannas Tumbling-Booth,’’ 
with its tumblers, jugglers, sword-swallowers, and balancers. 
This traveling show visited us regularly twice a year: once in 
summer for the Muckle Friday, when the performers were 
gay and stout, and even the horses had flesh on their bones; 
and again in the “ back-end ” of the year, when cold and 
hunger had taken the blood from their faces, and the scraggy 
dogs that whined at their sides were lashed for licking the 
paint off the caravans. While the storm-stead show was in 
the vicinity the villages suffered from an invasion of these 
dogs. Nothing told more truly the dreadful tale of the show- 
man’s life in winter. Sam’l Mann’s was a big show, and half 
a dozen smaller ones, most of which were familiar to us, 
crawled in its wake. Others heard of its whereabouts and 
came in from distant parts. There was the well-known Oub- 
bins with his “A’ the World in a Box;” a halfpenny peep- 
show, in which all the world was represented by Joseph and 
his Brethren (with pit and coat), the Bombardment of Copen- 
hagen, the Battle of the Nile, Daniel in the Den of Lions, 
and Mount Etna in eruption. 

‘‘Aunty Maggy’s Whirligig” could be enjoyed on pay- 
ment of an old pair of boots, a collection of rags, or the like. 
Besides these and other shows, there were the wandering min- 
strels, most of whom were “Waterloo veterans” wanting 
arms or a leg. I remember one whose arms had been 
“smashed by a thunder-bolt at Jamaica.” Queer bent old 
dames, who superintended “ lucky bags ” or told fortunes, 
supplied the uncanny element, but hesitated to call themselves 
witches, for there can still be seen near Thrums the pool where 
these unfortunates used to be drowned, and in the session book 
of the Glen Quliarity kirk can be read an old minute an- 
nouncing that on a certain Sabbath there was no preaching 
because “ the minister was away at the burning of a witch.” 
To the storm-stead shows came the gypsies in great numbers. 
Claypots (which is a corruption of Claypits) was their head- 
quarters near Thrums, and it is still sacred to their memory. 
It was a clachan of miserable little huts built entirely of 
clay from the dreary and sticky pit in which they had been 
flung together. A shapeless hole on one side was the door- 
way, and a little hole, stuffed with straw in winter, the win- 
dow. Some remnants of these hovels still stand. Their oc- 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 

pants, though they went by the name of gypsies among 
themselves, were known to the weavers as the Claypots beg- 
gars, and their king was Jimmy J?^awse. His regal dignity 
gave Jimmy the right to seek alms first when he chose to do 
so; thus he got the cream of a place before his subjects set to 
work. He was rather foppish in his dress; generally affecting 
a suit of gray cloth with showy metal buttons on it, and a 
broad blue bonnet. His wife was a little body like himself; 
and when they went a-begging, Jimmy with a meal-bag for 
aims on his back, she always took her husband^s arm. Jimmy 
was the legal adviser of his subjects; his decision was consid- 
ered final on all questions, and he guided them in their court- 
ship as well as on their death-beds. He christened their chil- 
dren and officiated at their weddings, marrying them over the 
tongs. 

The storm-stead show attracted old and young — to looking 
on from the outside. In the day-time the wagons and tents 
presented a dreary appearance, sunk in snow, the dogs shiver- 
ing between the wheels, and but little other sign of life visible. 
When dusk came the lights were lighted, and the drummer 
and lifer from the booth of tumblers were sent into the town 
to entice an audience. They marched quickly through the 
nipping, windy streets, and then returned with two or three 
score of men, women, and children, plunging through the 
snow or mud at their heavy heels. It was Orpheus fallen 
from his high estate. What a mockery the glare of the lamps 
and the capers of the mountebanks were, and how satisfied 
were we to enjoy it all without going inside! I hear the 
“ Waterloo veterans still, and remember their patriotic out- 
bursts: 

“ On the sixteenth day of June, brave boys, while cannon loud did roar, 

We being short of cavalry they pressed on us full sore; 

But British steel soon made them yield, though our numbers were 
but few. 

And death or victory was the word on the plains of Waterloo.” 

The storm-stead shows often found it easier to sink to rest 
in a field than to leave it. For weeks at a time they were 
snowed up sufficiently to prevent any one from Thrums going 
near them, though not sufficiently to keep the pallid mum- 
mers in-doors. That would in many cases have meant starva- 
tion. They managed to fight their way through storm and 
snow-drift to the high-road and thence to the town, where they 
got meal and sometimes broth. The tumblers and jugglers 
used occasionally to hire an out-house in the town at these 
times— -you may be sure they did not pay for it in advance 


AtJLD LlCHT IDYLLS. 


and give performances there. It is a curious thing, but true, 
that our herd-boys and others were sometimes struck with the 
stage-fever. Thrums lost boys to the showmen even in winten 

On the whole, the farmers and the people generally were 
wonderfully long-suffering with these wanderers, who, I be- 
lieve, were more honest than was to be expected. They stole, 
certainly; but seldom did they steal anything more valuable 
than turnips. SamT Mann himself flushed proudly over the 
effect his show once had on an irate farmer. The farmer ap- 
peared in the encampment, whip in hand, and furious. They 
must get off his land before nightfall. The crafty showman, 
however, prevailed upon him to take a look at the acrobats, 
and he enjoyed the performance so much that he offered to 
let them stay until the end of the week. Before that time 
came there was such a fall of snow that departure was out of 
the question; and it is to the farmer’s credit that he sent 
8am T a bag of meal to tide him and his actors over the storm. 

There were times when the showmen made a tour of the 
bothies, where they slung their poles and ropes and gave their 
poor performances to audiences that were not critical. The 
bothy being strictly the “man’s” castle, the farmer never 
interfered; indeed, he was sometimes glad to see the show. 
Every other weaver in Thrums used to have a son a plowman, 
and it was the men from the bothies who filled the square on 
the muckly. “ Hands ” are not huddled nowadays in squalid 
barns more like cattle than men and women, but bothies in 
the neighborhood of Thrums are not yet things of the past. 
Many a plowman delves his way to and from them still in all 
weathers, when the snow is on the ground, at the time of 
“ hairst,” and when the turnip “ shaws ” have just forced 
themselves through the earth, looking like straight rows of 
green needles. Here is a picture of a bothy of to-day that I 
visited recently. Over the door there is a water-spout that 
has given way, and as I entered I got a rush of rain down my 
neck. The passage was so small that one could easily have 
stepped from the door-way^ on to the ladder standing against 
the wall, which was there in lieu of a staircase. “ upstairs ” 
was a mere garret, where a man could not stand erect even in 
the center. It was entered by a square hole in the ceiling, at 
present closed by a clap-door in no way dissimilar to the trap- 
doors on a theater stage. I climbed into this garret, which is 
at present used as a store-room for agricultural odds and ends. 
At harvest-time, however, it is inhaMted — full to overflowing. 
A few decades ago as many as fifty laborers engaged for the 
harvest had to be housed ia the farm out-houses on beds of 




JiVLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


straw. There was no help for it, and men and women had 
to congregate in these barns together. Up as early as five in 
the morning, they were generally dead tired by night; and, 
miserable though this system of herding them together was, 
they took it like stoics, and their very number served as a 
moral safeguard. Nowadays the harvest is gathered in so 
quickly, and machinery does so much that used to be done by 
hand, that this crowding of laborers together, which was the 
bothy system at its worst, is nothing like what it was. As 
many as six or eight men, however, are put up in the garret 
referred to during “ hairst time, and the female laborers 
have to make the best of it in the barn. There is no doubt 
that on many farms the two sexes have still, at this busy time, 
to herd together even at night. 

The bothy was but scantily furnished, though it consisted 
of two rooms. In the one, which was used almost solely as a 
sleeping-apartment, there was no furniture to speak of, beyond 
two closet beds, and its bumpy earthen fioor gave it a cheer- 
less look. The other, which had a single bed, was fioored 
with wood. It was not badly lighted by two very small win- 
dows that faced each other, and, besides several stools, there 
was a long form against one of the walls. A bright fire of 
peat and coal — nothing in the world makes such a cheerful red 
fire as this combination — ^burned beneath a big kettle (“ boiler 
they called it), and there was a “ press or cupboard con- 
taining a fair assortment of cooking utensils. Of these some 
belonged to the bothy, while others were the private property 
of the tenants. A tin “pan’^ and “ pitcher of water 
stood near the door, and the table in the middle of the room 
was covered with oilcloth. 

Four men and a boy inhabited this bothy, and the rain had 
driven them all in-doors. In better weather they spend the 
leisure of the evening at the game of quoits, which is the 
standard pastime among Scottish plowmen. They fish the 
neighboring streams, too, and have burn-trout for suppei sev- 
eral times a week. When I entered, two of them were sitting 
by the fire playing draughts, or, as they called it, “ the dam- 
brod.” The dambrod is the Scottish laborer s billiards, and 
he often attains to a remarkable proficiency at the game. 
Wylie, the champion draught-player, was once a herd-boy; 
and wonderful stories are current in all bothies of the times 
when his master called him into the farm parlor to show his 
skill. A third man, who seemed the elder by quite twenty 
years, was at the window reading a newspaper; and I got no 
shock when 1 saw that it was the Saturday Review, which he 


AtJLD LIGHT IBYLUS. 


and a laborer on an adjoining farm took in weekly between 
them. There was a copy of a local newspaper — the People* s 
Journal — also lying about, and some books, including one of 
Darwin’s. These were all the property of this man, however, 
who did the reading for the bothy. 

They did all the cooking for themselves, living largely on 
milk. In the old days, which the senior could remember, 
porridge was so universally the morning meal that they called 
it by that name instead of breakfast. They still breakfast on 
porridge, but often take tea above it.” Generally milk is 
taken with the porridge; but ‘‘ porter ” or stout in a bowl is 
no uncommon substitute. Potatoes at twelve o’clock — seldom 
“ brose ” nowadays — are the staple dinner dish, and the 
tinned meats have become very popular. There are bothies 
where each man makes his own food ; but of course the more 
satisfactory plan is for them to club together. Sometimes 
they get their food in the farm kitchen; but this is only when 
there are few of them, and the farmer and his family do not 
think it beneath them to dine with the men. Broth, too, 
may be made in the kitchen and sent down to the bothy. At 
harvest-time the workers take their food in the fields, when 
great quantities of milk are provided. There is very little 
beer drank, and whisky is only "consumed in privacy. 

Life in the bothies is not, I should say, so lonely as life at 
the school-house, for the hands have at least each other’s 
company. The hawker visits them frequently still, though 
the itinerant tailor, once a familiar figure, has almost van- 
ished. Their great place of congregating is still some country 
smithy, which is also their frequent meeting-place when bent 
on black-fishing. The flare of the black-fisher’s torch still at- 
tracts salmon to their death in the rivers near Thrums, and 
you may hear in the glens on a dark night the rattle of the 
spears on the wet stones. Twenty or thirty years ago, how- 
ever, the sport was much more common. After the farmer 
had gone to bed, some half dozen plowmen and a few other 
poac&rs from Thrums would set out for the meeting-place. 

The smithy on these occasions must have been a w'eird sight, 
though one did not mark that at the time. The poacher crept 
from the darkness into the glaring smithy light; for in coun- 
try parts the anvil might sometimes be heard clanging at all 
hours of the night. As a rule, every face was blackened; and 
it was this, I suppose, rather than the fact that dark nights 
were chosen, that gave the gands the name of black-fishers. 
Other disguises were resorted to, one of the commonest being 
to chancre clothes or to turn your corduroys outside in. The 


AtJLD LICST IDYLLS. 


26 

country-folk of those days were more superstitious than they 
are now, and it did not take much to turn the black-fishers 
back. There was not a barn or byre in the district that had 
not its horse-shoe over the door. Another popular device for 
frightening away witches and fairies was to hang bunches of 
garlic about the farms. I have known a black-fishing expedi- 
tion stopped because a yellow yite/’ or yellow-hammer, hov- 
ered round the gang when they were setting out. Still more 
ominous was the “ peat when it appeared with one or three 
companions. An old rhyme about this bird runs — ‘‘ One is 
joy, two is grief, three’s a bridal, four is death.” Such 
snatches of superstition are still to be heard amid the gossip 
of a north-country smithy. 

Each black-fisher brought his own spear and torch, both 
more or less home-made. The spears were in many cases 

gully-knives,” fastened to staves with twine and resin, called 
“rozet.” The torches were very rough-and-ready things — 
rope and tar, or even rotten roots dug from broken trees — in 
fact, anything that would flare. The black-fishers seldom 
journeyed far from home, confining themselves to the rivers 
within a radius of three or four miles. There were many 
reasons for this: one of them being that the hands had to be 
at their work on the farm by five o^olock in the morning; an- 
other, that so they poached and let poach. Except when in 
spate, the river I specially refer to offered no attractions to 
the black-fishers. Heavy rains, however, swell it much more 
quickly than most rivers into a turbulent rush of water, the 
part of it affected by the black-fishers being banked in with 
rocks that prevent the water’s spreading. Above these rocks, 
again, are heavy green banks, from which stunted trees grow 
aslant across the river. The effect is fearsome at some points 
where the trees run into each other, as it were^ from opposite 
banks. However, the black-fishers thought nothing of these 
things. They took a turnip lantern with them — that is, a 
lantern hollowed out of a turnip, with a piece of candle inside 
— but no lights were shown on the road. Every one knew hii 
way to the river blindfold, so that the darker the night, the 
better. On reaching the water there was a pause. One or 
two of the gang climbed the banks to discover if any bailiffs 
were on the watch, while the others sat down, and with the 
help of the turnip lantern “ busked ” their spears; in other 
words, fastened on the steel — or, it might be, merely pieces of 
rusty iron sharpened into a point at home — to the staves. 
Some had them busked before they set out, but that was not 
considered prudent; for, of course, there was always a risk of 


AtLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


meeting spoil-sports on the way, to whom the spears would 
tell a tale that could not be learned from ordinary staves. 
Nevertheless, little time was lost. Five or six of the gang 
waded into the water, torch in one hand and spear in the 
other; and the object now was to catch some salmon with the 
least possible delay, and hurry away. Windy nights were good 
for the sport, and I can still see the river lighted up with the 
lumps of light that a torch makes in a high wind. The 
torches, of course, were used to attract the fish, which came 
swimming to the sheen, and were then speared. As little 
noise as possible was made; but though the men bit their lips 
instead of crying out when they missed their fish, there was a 
continuous ring of their weapons on the stones, and every irre- 
pressible imprecation was echoed up and down the black glen. 
Two or three of the gang were told off to land the salmon, 
and they had to work smartly and deftly. They kept by the 
side of the spearsman, and the moment he struck a fish they 
grabbed it with their hands. When the spear had a barb 
there was less chance of the fish's being lost; but often this 
was not the case, and probably not more than two thirds of 
the salmon speared were got safely to the bank. The takes, 
of course, varied; sometimes, indeed, the black-fishers re- 
turned home empty-handed. 

Encounters with the bailiffs were not infrequent, though 
they seldom took place at the water^s edge. When the poach- 
ers were caught in the act, and had their blood up with the 
excitement of the sport, they were ugly customers. Spears 
ere used and heads were broken. Struggles even took place 
in the water, when there was always a chance of somebody’s 
being drowned. Where the bailiffs gave the black-fishers an 
opportunity of escaping without a fight, it was nearly always 
taken, the booty being left behind. As a rule, when the 
“ water- watcher,” as the bailiffs were sometimes called, had 
an inkling of what was to take place, they re-enforced them- 
selves with a constable or two and waited on the road to catch 
the poachers on their way home. One black-fisher, a noted 
character, was nicknamed the ‘‘ Deil o’ Glen Quharity.” He 
was said to have gone to the houses of the bailiffs and offered 
to sell them the fish stolen from the streams over which they 
kept guard. The Deil ” was never imprisoned— partly, per- 
haps, because he was too eccentric to be taken seriously. 


AULB LIGHT IDYLLS. 




CHAPTER III. 

THE AULD LIGHT KIRK. 

Oke Sabbath day in the beginning of the century, the Auld 
Licht minister at Thrums walked out of his battered, ram- 
shackle, earthen-floored kirk with a following and never re- 
turned. The last words he uttered in it were: Follow me to 
the common ty, all you persons who want to hear the Word of 
God properly preached; and James Duphie and his two sons 
will answer for this on the Day of Judgment.’^ The congre- 
gation, which belonged to the body who seceded from the 
Established Church a hundred and fifty years ago, had split, 
and as the New Lights, now the U. P. 's, were in the majority, 
the Old Lights, with the minister at their head, had to retire 
to the commonty, or common, and hold service in the open 
air until they had saved up money for a church. They kept 
possession, however, of the white manse among the trees. 
Their kirk has but a cluster of members now, most of them 
old and done, but each is equal to a dozen ordinary church- 
goers, and there have been men and women among them on 
whom the memory loves to linger. For forty years they have 
been dying out, but their cold, stiff pews still echo the Psalms 
of David, and the Auld Licht kirk will remain open so long 
as it has one member and a minister. 

The church stands round the corner from the square, with 
only a large door to distinguish it from the other buildings in 
the short street. Children who want to do a brave thing hit 
this door with their fists, when there is no one near, and then 
run away scared. The door, however, is sacred to the mem- 
ory of a white-haired old lady who, not so long ago, used to 
march out of the kirk and remain on the pavement until the 
psalm which had just been given out was sung. Of Thrums’ 
pavement it may be here said that when you come, even to 
this day, to a level slab you feel reluctant to leave it. The 
old lady was Mistress (which is Miss) Tibbie McQuhatty, and 
she nearly split the Auld Licht kirk over “ run line.” This 
conspicuous innovation was introduced by Mr. Disbar t, the 
minister, when he was young and audacious. The old, rev- 
erent custom in the kirk was for the precentor to read out the 
psalm, line at a time. Having then sung that line, he read 
out the next one, led the singing of it, and so worked his way 
on to line three. Where run line holds, however, the psalm 


ATJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


29 


is read out first, and forthwith sung. This is not only a flighty 
way ot doing things, which may lead to gi-eater scandals, but 
has its practical disadvantages, for the precentor always starts 
singing in advance of the congregation (Auld Lichts never be- 
ing able to begin to do anything all at once), and, increasing 
the distance with every line, leaves them hopelessly behind at 
the finish. Miss McQuhatty protested against this change, as 
meeting the devil half-way, but the minister carried his point, 
and even after that she rushed ostentatiously from the church 
the moment a psalm was given out, and remained behind the 
door until the singing was finished, when she returned, with a 
rustle, to her seat. Kun line had on her the effect of the 
reading of the Eiot Act. Once some men, capable of any- 
thing, held the door from the outside, and the congregation 
heard Tibbie rampaging in the passage. Bursting into the 
kirk, she called the office-bearers to her assistance, whereupon 
the minister in miniature raised his voice and demanded the 
why and wherefore of the ungodly disturbance. Great was the 
hubbub, but the door was fast, and a compromise had to be 
arrived at. The old lady consented for once to stand in the 
passage, but not without pressing her hands to her ears. You 
may smile at Tibbie, but, ah! I know what she was at the side 
of a sick-bed. I have seen her when the hard look had gone 
f rom her eyes, and it would ill become me to smile, too. 

As with all the churches in Thrums, care had been taken to 
make the Auld Licht one much too large. The stair to the 
“ laft,” or gallery, which was originally little more than a 
ladder, is ready for you as soon as you enter the door-way, but 
it is best to sit in the body of the kirk. The plate for col- 
lections is inside the church, so that the whole congregation 
can give a guess at what you give. If it is something very 
stingy or very liberal, all Thrums knows of it within a few 
hours; indeed, this holds good of all the churches, especially, 
perhaps, of the Free one, which has been called the bawbee 
kirk, because so many half-pennies find their way into the 
plate. On Saturday nights the Thrums shops are besieged 
for coppers by housewives of all denominations, who would as 
soon think of dropping a threepenny bit into the plate as giv- 
ing nothing. Tammy Todd had a curious way of tipping his 
penny into the Auld Licht plate while still keeping his hand 
to his side. He did it much as a boy fires a marble, and there 
was quite a talk in the congregation the first time he missed. 
A devout .plan was to carry your penny in your hand all the 
way to church, but to appear to take it out of your pocket on 
entering, and some plumped it down noisely like men paying 


50 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


their way. I believe old Snecky Hobart, who was a canty 
stock, but obstinate, once dropped a penny into the plate and 
took out a halfpenny as change; but the only untoward thing 
that happened to the plate was once when the lassie from the 
farm of Curly Bog capsized it in passing. ^ Mr. Dishart, who 
was always a ready man, introduced something into his sermon 
that day about women’s dress, which every one hoped Christy 
Lundy, the lassie in question, would remember. Nevertheless, 
the minister sometimes came to a sudden stop himself when 
passing from the vestry to the pulpit. The passage being 
narrow, his rigging would catch in a pew as he sailed' down 
the aisle. Even then, however, Mr. Dishart remembered that 
he was not as other men. 

White is not a religious color, and the walls of the kirk 
were of a dull gray. A cushion was allowed to the manse 
pew, but merely as a symbol of office, and this was the only 
pew in the church that had a door. It was, and is, the pew 
nearest to the pulpit on the minister’s right, and one day it 
contained a bonnet which Mr. Dishart’ s predecessor preached 
at for one hour and ten minutes. From the pulpit, which was 
swaddled in black, the minister had a fine sweep of all the 
congregation except those in the back pews down-stairs, who 
were lost in the shadow of the laft. Here sat 'Whinny Web- 
ster, so called because, having an inexplicable passion against 
them, he devoted his life to the extermination of whins. 
Whinny for years eat peppermint lozenges with impunity in 
his back seat, safe in the certainty that the mmister, however 
much he might try, could not possibly see him. But his day 
came. One afternoon the kirk smelt of peppermints, and Mr. 
Dishart could rebuke no one, for the defaulter was not in sight. 
Whinny’s cheek was working up and down in quiet enjoyment 
of its lozenge, when he started, noticing that the preaching 
had stopped. Then he heard a sepulchral voice say “ Charles 
Webster!” Whinny’s eyes turned to the pulpit, only part of 
which was visible to him, and to his horror they encountered 
the minister’s head coming down the stairs. This took place 
after I had ceased to attend the Auld Licht kirk regularly, 
but I am told that as Whinny gave one wild scream the pep- 
permint dropped from his mouth. The minister had got him 
by leaning over the pulpit door until, had he given himself 
only another inch, his feet would have gone into the air. As 
for Whinny, he became a God-fearing man. 

The most uncanny thing about the kirk was the precentor’s 
box beneath the pulpit. Three Auld Licht ministers I have 
known, but I can only conceive one precentor. Lang Tam- 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


31 

mas's box was much too small for him. Since his disappear- 
ance from Thrums I believe they have paid him the compli- 
ment of enlarging it for a smaller man — no doubt with the 
feeling that Tammas alone could look like a Christian in it. 
Like the whole congregation, of course, he had to stand dur- 
ing the prayers— the first of which averaged half an hour in 
length. If he stood erect his head and shoulders vanished be- 
neath funeral trappings, when he seemed decapitated, and if 
he stretched his neck the pulpit tottered. He looked like the 
pillar on which it rested, or he balanced it on his head like a 
baker's tray. Sometimes he leaned forward as reverently as 
he could, and then, with his long, lean arms dangling over the 
side of his box, he might have been a suit of blacks " hung 
up to dry. Once I was talking with Cree Queery in a sober, 
respectable manner, when all at once a light broke out on his 
face. I asked him what he was laughing at, and he said it 
was at Lang Tammas. He got grave again when I asked him 
what there was in Lang Tammas to smile at, and admitted 
that he could not tell me. However, I have always been of 
opinion that the thought of the precentor in his box gave Cree 
a fieeting sense of humor. 

Tammas and Hendry Munn were the two paid officials of 
the church, Hendry being kirk officer; but poverty was among 
the few points they had in common. The precentor was a 
cobbler, though he never knew it, shoe-maker being the name 
in those parts, and his dwelling-room was also his work-shop. 
There he sat in his ‘‘ brot,” or apron, from early morning to 
far on to midnight, and contrived to make his six or eight 
shillings a week. 1 have often sat with him in the darkness 
that his “ cruizey " lamp could not pierce, while his mutter- 
ings to himself of “ ay, ay, yes, umpha, oh, ay, ay, man," 
came as regularly and monotonously as the tick of his “ wag- 
at-the-wa’ " clock. Henry and he were paid no fixed sum for 
their services in the Auld Licht kirk, but once a year there 
was a collection for each one of them, and so they jogged 
along. Though not the only kirk officer of my time, Hendry 
made the most lasting impression. He was, I think, the only 
man in Thrums who did not quake when the minister looked 
at him. A wild story, never authenticated, says that Hendry 
once offered Mr. Hishart a snuff from his mull. In the streets, 
Lang Tammas was more stern and dreaded by evil-doers, but 
Hendry had first place in the kirk. One of his duties was to 
precede the minister from the session-house to the pulpit and 
open the door for him. Having shut Mr. Hishart in, he 
strolled away to his seat. When a strange minister preached.. 


B2 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


Hendry was, if possible, still more at his ease. This will not 
be believed, but I ha^v e seen him give the pulpit door on these 
occasions a fling-to with his feet. However ill an ordinary 
member of the congregation might become in the kirk, he sat 
on till the service ended, but Hendry would wander to the 
door and shut it if he noticed that the wind was playing irrev- 
erent tricks with the pages of Bibles, and proof could still be 
brought forward that he would stop deliberately in the aisle to 
lift up a piece of paper, say, that had floated there. After the 
first psalm had been sung it was Hendry’s part to lift up the 
plate and carry its tinkling contents to the session-house. On 
the greatest occasions he remained so calm, so indifferent, so 
expressionless, that he might have been present the night be- 
fore at a rehearsal. 

When there was preaching at night the church was lighted 
by tallow candles, which also gave out all the artificial heat 
provided. Two caiidles stood on each side of the pulpit, and 
others were scattered over the church, some of them fixed into 
holes on rough brackets, and some merely sticking in their 
own grease on the pews. Hendry superintended the lighting 
of the candles, and frequently hobbled through the church to 
snuff them. Mr. Dishart was a man who could do anything 
except snuff a candle, but when he stopped in his sermon to 
do that he as often as not knocked the candle over. In vain 
he sought to refix it in its proper place, and then all eyes 
turned to Hendry. As coolly as though he were in a public 
hall or place of entertainment, the kirk officer arose, and, 
mounting the stair, took the candle from the minister’s re- 
luctant hands and put it right. Then he returned to his seat, 
not apparently puffed up, yet perhaps satisfied with himself; 
while Mr. Dishart, glaring after him to see if he was carrying 
his head high, resumed his wordy way. 

Never was there a man more uncomfortably loved than Mr. 
Dishart. Easie Haggart, his maid-servant, reproved him at 
the breakfast-table. Lang Tammas and Sam’l Mealmaker 
crouched for five successive Sabbath nights on his manse wall 
to catch him smoking, and got him. Old wives grumbled by 
their hearths when he did not look in to despair of their salva- 
tion. He told the maidens of his congregation not to make 
an idol of him. His session saw him, from behind a hay-stack, 
in conversation vdth a strange woman, and asked grimly if he 
remembered that he had a wife. Twenty were his years when 
he came to Thrums, and on the very first Sabbath he knocked 
a board out of the pulpit. Before beginning his trial sermon 
handed down the big Bible to the precentor, to give his 


' AULD LICHT IDYLLS. 33 

arms freer swing. The congregation, trembling with exhila- 
ration, probed his meaning, jftt a square inch of paper, they 
saw, could be concealed there. Mr. Dishart had scarcely any 
hope for the Auld Lichts; he had none for any other denomi- 
nation. Davit Lunan got behind his handkerchief to think 
for a moment, and the minister was on him like a tiger. The 
call was unanimous. Davit proposed him. 

Every few years, as one might say, the Auld Licht kirk 
gave way and buried its minister. The congregation turned 
their empty pockets inside out, and the minister departed in a 
farmer’s cart. The scene was not an amusing on to those 
who looked on at it. To the Auld Lichts was then the humil- 
iation of seeing their pulpit supplied ” on alternate Sab- 
baths by itinerant probationers or stickit ministers. When 
they were not starving themselves to support a pastor, the 
Auld Lichts were saving up for a stipend. They retired with 
compressed lips to their looms, and weaved and weaved till 
they weaved another minister. AVithout the grief of parting 
with one minister, there could not have been the transport (3 
choosing another. To have had a pastor always might have 
made them vain-glorious. 

They were seldom longer than twelve months in making a 
selection, and in their haste they would have passed over Mr. 
Dishart and mated with a monster. Many years have elapsed 
since Providence flung Mr. AVatts out of the Auld Licht kirk. 
Mr. Watts was a probationer who was tried before Mr. Dis- 
hart, and, though not so young as might have been wished, ho 
found favor in many eyes. “ Sluggard in the laft, awake!” 
he oried to Bell AVhamond, who had forgotten herself, and it 
was felt that there must be good stuff in him. A breeze from 
heaven exposed him on Communion Sabbath. 

On the evening of this solemn day the door of the Auld 
Licht kirk was sometimes locked, and the congregation re- 
paired, Bible in hand, to the commonty. They had a right to 
this common on the Communion Sabbath, but only took ad- 
vantage of it when it was believed that more persons intended 
witnessing the evening service than the kirk would hold- On 
this day the attendance was always very great. 

It was the Covenanters come back to life. To the summit 
of the slope a wooden box was slowly hurled by Hendry Munn 
and others, and round this the congregation quietly grouped 
to the tinkle of the cracked Auld Licht bell. With slow, ma- 
jestic tread the session advanced up the steep common, with 
the little minister in their midst He had the people in his 


34 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


hands now, and the more he squeezed them, the better they 
were pleased. The traveling pulpit consisted of two compart- 
ments, the one for the minister and the other for Lang Tarn- 
mas, but no Auld Licht thought that it looked like a Punch 
and Judy puppet show. This service on the common was 
known as the “ tent preaching, owing to a tent being fre- 
quently used instead of the box. 

Mr. Watts was conducting the service on the commonty. It 
was a fine, still summer evening, and loud above the whisper 
of the burn from which the common climbs, and the labored 
“ pechs of the listeners, rose the preacher’s voice. The 
Auld Lichts in their rusty blacks — they must have been a 
more artistic sight in the olden days of blue bonnets and 
knee-breeches — nodded their heads in sharp approval; for 
though they could swoop down on a heretic like an eagle on 
carrion, they scented no prey. Even Lang Tam mas, on whose 
nose a drop of water gathered when he was in his greatest fet- 
tle, thought that all was fair and above-board. Suddenly a 
rush of wind tore up the common, and ran straight at the 
pulpit. It formed in a sieve, and passed over the heads of 
the congregation, who felt it as a fan, and looked up in awe. 
Lang Tammas, feeling himself all at once grow clammy, dis- 
tinctly heard the leaves of the pulpit Bible shiver. Mr. W atts^ 
hands, outstretched to prevent a catastrophe, were blown 
against his side, and then some twenty sheets of closely written 
paper floated into the air. There was a horrible, dead silence. 
The burn was roaring now. The minister, if such he can be 
called, shrunk back in his box, and, as if they had seen it printed 
in letters of fire on the heavens, the congregation realized that 
Mr. Watts, whom they had been on the point of calling, read 
his sermon. He wrote it out on pages the exact size of those 
in the Bible, and did not scruple to fasten these into the Holy 
Book itself. At theaters, a sullen thunder of angry voices 
behind the scene represents a crowd in a rage, and such a low, 
long-drawn howl swept the common when Mr. Watts was 
found out. To follow a pastor who “ read seemed to the 
Auld Lichts like claiming heaven on false pretenses. In ten 
minutes the session alone, with Lang Tammas and Hendry, 
were on the common. They were watched by many from 
afar off, and, when one comes to think of it now, looked a 
little curious jumping, like trout at flies, at the damning pa- 
pers still fluttering in the air. The minister was never seen in 
our parts again, but he is still remembered as “ Paper Watts.” 

Mr. Dishart in the pulpit was the reward of his up-bringing. 
At ten he had entered the university. ^ Before he was in his 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


35 


teens lie was practicing the art of gesticulation in his father’s 
gallery pew. From distant congregations people came to 
marvel at him. He was never more than comparatively 
young. So long as the pulpit trappings of the kirk at 
Thrums lasted he could be seen, once he was fairly under way 
with his sermon, but dimly in a cloud of dust. He introduced 
headaches. In a grand transport of enthusiasm he once flung 
his arms over the pulpit and caught Lang Tamm as on the 
forehead. Leaning forward, with his chest on the cushions, 
he would pommel the Evil One with both hands, and then, 
whirling round to the left, shake his flst at Bell Whamond’s 
neckerchief. With a sudden jump he would flx Pete Todd’s 
youngest boy catching flies at the laft window. Stiffening 
unexpectedly, he would leap three times into the air, and then 
gather himself in a corner for a fearsome spring. When he 
wept he seemed to be laughing, and he laughed in a paroxysm 
of tears. He tried to tear the devil out of the pulpit rails. 
When he was not a teetotum he was a wind-mill. His pump 
position was the most appalling. Then he glared motionless 
at his admiring listeners, as if he had fallen into a trance with 
his arm upraised. The hurricane broke next moment. Nanny 
Sutie bore up under the shadow of the wind-mill — which would 
have been heavier had Auld Licht ministers worn gowns — ^but 
the pump affected her to tears. She was stone-deaf. 

For the flrst year or more of his ministry an Auld Licht 
minister was a mouse among cats. Both in the pulpit and 
out of it they watched for unsound doctrine, and when he 
strayed they took him by the neck. Mr. Dishart, however, 
had been brought up in the true way, and seldom gave his 
people a chance. In time, it may be said, they grew despond- 
ent, and settled in their uncomfortable pews, with all suspicion 
of lurking heresy allayed. It was only on such Sabbaths as 
Mr. Dishart changed pulpits with another minister that they 
cocked their ears and leaned forward eagerly to snap thi 
preacher up. 

Mr. Dishart had his trials. There was the split in the kirk, 
too, that comes once at least to every Auld Licht minister. 
He was long in marr3dng. The congregation were thinking of 
approaching him, through the medium of his servant, Easie 
Haggart, on the subject of matrimony; for a bachelor coming 
on for twenty-two, with an income of eighty pounds per an- 
num, seemed an anomaly, when one day he took the canal for 
Edinburgh and returned with his bride. His people nodded 
their he^s, but said nothing to the minister. If he did not 
choose to take them into Ms confidence, it was no affair of 


36 


AULD LIGHT IPTLLS. 


theirs. That there was something queer about the marriage, 
however, seemed certain. Sandy Whamond, who was a soured 
man after losing his eldership, said that he believed she had 
been an “Englishy’’ — in other words, had belonged to the 
English Church; but it is not probable that Mr. Dishart would 
have gone the length of that. The secret is buried in his grave. 

Easie Haggart jagged the minister sorely. She grew loq^ua- 
eious with years, and when he had company would stand at 
the door joining in the conversation. If the company was 
another minister, she would take a chair and discuss Mr. Dis- 
hart’s infirmities with him. The Auld Lichts loved their 
minister, but they saw even more clearly than himself the 
necessity for his humiliation. His wife made all her children’s 
clothes, but Sanders Gow complained that she looked too like 
their sister. In one week three of their children died, and on 
the Sabbath following it rained. Mr. Dishart preach^, twice 
breaking down altogether and gaping strangely round the kirk 
— there was no dust flying that day — and spoke of the rain as 
angels’ tears for three little girls. The Auld Lichts let it 
pass, but, as Lang Tammas said in private — for, of course, 
the thing was much discussed at the looms — if you materialize 
angels in that way, where are you going to stop? 

It was on the Fast Days thiat the Auld Licht kirk showed 
what it was capable of, and, so to speak, left all the other 
churches in Thrums far behind. The Fast came round once 
every summer, beginning on a Thursday, when all the looms 
were hushed, and two services were held in the kirk, of about 
three hours’ length each. A minister from another town 
assisted at these times, and when the service ended the mem- 
bers filed in at one door and out at another, passing on their 
way Mr. Dishart and his elders, who dispensed tokens” at 
the foot of the pulpit. Without a token, which was a metal 
lozenge, no one could take the sacrament on the coming Sab- 
bath, and many a member has Mr. Dishart made miserable by 
refusing him his token for gathering wild-flowers, say, on a 
Lord’s Day, as testified to by another member. Women were 
lost who cooked dinners on the Sabbath, or took to colored rib- 
bons, or absented themselves from church without sufficient 
cause. On the Fast Day fists were shaken at Mr. Dishart as 
he walked sternly homeward, but he was undismayed. Next 
day there were no services in the kirk, for Auld Lichts could 
not afford many holidays, but they weaved solemnly, with 
Saturday and the Sabbath and Monday to think of. On Sat- 
urday, service began at two and lasted until nearly seven. Two 
sermons were preached, but there was no interval. The sac- 


ATJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


87 


rament was dispensed on the Sabbath. Nowadays the ‘‘ ta- 
bles in the Auld Licht kirk are soon served/’ for the at- 
tendance has decayed, and most of the pews in the body of the 
church are made use of. In the days of which I speak, how- 
ever, the front pews alone were hung with white, and it was 
in them only that the sacrament was administered. As many 
members as could get into them delivered up their tokens and 
took the first table. Then they made room for others, who 
sat in their pews awaiting their turn. What with tables, the 
preaching, and usually long prayers, the service lasted from 
eleven to six. At half past six a two-hours’ service began, 
either in the kirk or on the common, from which no one who 
thought much about his immortal soul would have dared, or 
cared, to absent himself. A four-hours’ service on the Mon- 
day, which, like that of the Saturdayj consisted of two services 
in one, but began at eleven instead of two, completed the pro- 
gramme. 

On those days, if you were a poor creature and wanted to 
acknowledge it, you could leave the church for a few minutes 
and return to it, but the creditable thing was to sit on. Even 
among the children there was a keen competition, fostered by 
their parents, to sit each other out, and be in at the death. 

The other Thrums kirks held the sacrament at the same 
time, but not with the same vehemence. As far north from 
the school-house as Thrums is south of it, nestles the little 
village of Quharity, and there the Fast Day was not a day of 
fasting. In most cases the people had to go many miles to 
church. They drove or rode, two on a horse, or walked in 
from other glens. Without “ the tents,” therefore, the con- 
gregation, with a long day before them, would have been badly 
off. Sometimes one tent sufficed; at other times rival publi- 
cans were on the ground. The tents were those in use at the 
feeing and other markets, and you could get anything inside 
them, from broth made in a “ boiler ” to the finest whisky. 
They were planted just outside the kirk-gate — long, low tents 
of dirty white canvas — so that when passing into the church 
or out of it you inhaled their odors. The congregation 
emerged austerely from the church, shaking their heads sol- 
emnly over the minister’s remarks, and their feet carried them 
into the tent. There was no mirth, no unseemly revelry, but 
there was a great deal of hard drinking. Eventually the tents 
were done away with, but not until the services on the Fast 
Days were shortened. The Auld Licht ministers were the 
only ones who preached against the tents with any heart, and 
Bince the old dominie, my predecessor at the school-house. 


38 


AtrLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


died, there has not been an Auld Licht permanently resident 
in the glen of Quharity. 

Perhaps nothing took it out of the Auld Licht males so 
much as a christening. Then alone they showed symptoms of 
nervousness, more especially after the remarkable baptism of 
Eppie Whamond. I could tell of several scandals in connec- 
tion with the kirk. There was, for instance, the time when 
Easie Haggart saved the minister. In a fit of temporary 
mental derangement the misguided man had, one Sabbath 
day, despite the entreaties of his affrighted spouse, called at 
the post-office, and was on the point of reading a letter there 
received, when Easie, who had slipped on her bonnet and fol- 
lowed him, snatched the secular thing from his hands. There 
was the story that ran like fire through Thrums and crushed 
an innocent man, to the effect that Pete Todd had been in an 
Edinburgh theater countenancing the play-actors. Something 
could be made, too, of the retribution that came to Charlie 
Eamsay, who woke in his pew to discover that its other occu- 
pant, his little son Jamie, was standing on the seat divesting 
himself of his clothes in presence of a horrified congregation. 
Jamie had begun stealthily, and had very little on when 
Charlie seized him. But having my choice of scandals, I pre- 
fer the christening one — the unique case of Eppie Whamond, 
who was born late on Saturday night and baptized in the kirk 
on the following forenoon. 

To the casual observer the Auld Licht always looked as if 
he were returning from burying a near relative. Yet when I 
met him hobbling down the street, preternaturally grave and 
occupied, experience taught me that he was preparing for a 
christening. How the minister would have borne himself in 
the event of a member of his congregation wanting the bap- 
tism to take place at home, it is not easy to say, but I shud- 
der to think of the public prayers for the parents that would 
certainly have followed. The child was carried to the kirk 
through rain, or snow, or sleet, or wind, the father took liis 
seat alone in the front pew, under the minister’s eye, and the 
service was prolonged far on into the afternoon. But though the 
references in the sermon to that unhappy object of interest in 
the front pew were many and pointed, his time had not really 
come until the minister signed to him to advance as far as the 
second step of the pulpit stairs. The nervous father clinched 
the railing in a daze, and cowered before the ministerial heck- 
ling. From warning, the minister passed to exhortation, from 
exhortation to admonition, from admonition to searching ques- 
tioning, from questioning to prayer and wailing. When the 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


39 


father glanced up^ there was the radiant boy in the pulpit 
looking as if he would like to jump down his throat. If he 
hung his head the minister would ask, with a groan, whether 
he was unprepared; and the whole congregation would sigh 
out the response that Mr. Dishart had hit it. When he replied 
audibly to the minister\s uncomfortable questions, a pained 
look at his flippancy traveled from the pulpit all round the 
pews; and when he only bowed his head in answer, the min- 
ister paused sternly, and the congregation wondered what the 
man meant. Little wonder that Davie Haggart took to drink- 
ing when his turn came for occupying that front pew. 

If wee Eppie Whamond’s birth had been deferred until the 
beginning of the week, or humility had shown more promi- 
nently among her mother’s virtues, the kirk would have been 
saved a painful scandal, and Sandy Whamond might have re- 
tained his eldership. Yet it was a foolish but wifely pride in 
her husband’s ofificial position that turned Bell Dundas’s head 
— a wild ambition to beat all baptismal records. 

Among the wives she was esteemed a poor body whose in- 
fant did not see the inside of the kirk within a fortnight of its 
birth. Forty years ago it was an accepted superstition in 
Thrums that the ghosts of children who had died before they 
were baptized went wailing and wringing their hands round 
the kirk-yard at nights, and that they would continue to do 
this until the crack of doom. When the Auld Licht children 
grew up, too, they crowed over those of their fellows whose 
christening had been deferred until a comparatively late date, 
and the mothers who had needlessly missed a Sabbath for long 
afterward hung their heads. That was a good and creditable 
birth which took place early in the week, thus allowing time 
for suitable christening preparations; while to be born on a 
Friday or a Saturday was to humiliate your parents, besides 
being an extremely ominous beginning for yourself. Without 
seeking to vindicate Bell Dundas’s behavior, I may note, as an 
act of ordinary fairness, that, being the leading elder’s wife, 
she was sorely tempted. Eppie made her appearance at 9 :45 
on a Saturday night. 

In the hurry and skurry that ensued, Sandy escaped sadly 
to the square. His infant would be baptized eight days old, 
one of the longest-deferred christenings of the year. Sandy 
was shivering under the clock when I met him accidentally, 
and took him home. But by that time the harm had been 
done. Several of the congregation had been roused from 
their beds to hear his lamentations, of whom the men sympa- 
thized with him, while the wives triumphed austerely over 


40 


AtrtB Item IDYLLS. 


Bell Dundas. As I wrung poor Sandy’s hand, I hardly no* 
ticed that a bright light showed distinctly between the shut- 
ters of his kitchen window; but the elder himself turned pale 
and breathed quickly. It was then fourteen minutes past 
twelve. 

My heart sunk within me on the following forenoon, when 
Sandy Whamond walked, with a queer twitching face, into the 
front pew under a glare of eyes from the body of the kirk and 
the laft. An amazed buzz went round the church, followed 
by a pursing up of lips and hurried whisperings. Evidently, 
Sandy had been driven to it against his own judgment. The 
scene is still vivid before me : the minister suspecting no guile, 
and omitting the admonitory stage out of compliment to the 
elder’s standing; Sandy’s ghastly face; the proud godmother, 
aged twelve, with the squalling baby in her arms; the horror 
of the congregation to a man and woman. A slate fell from 
Sandy’s house even as he held up the babe to the minister to 
receive a “ droukin’ ” of water, and Eppie cried so vigorously 
that her shamed godmother had to rush with her to the vestry. 
Now, things are not as they should be when an Auld Licht in- 
fant does not quietly sit out her first service. 

Bell tried for a time to carry her head high, but Sandy 
ceased to whistle at his loom, and the scandal was a rolling 
stone that soon passed over him. Briefly it amounted to this: 
that a bairn born within two hours of midnight on Saturday 
could not have been ready for christening at the kirk next day 
without the breaking of the Sabbath. Had the secret of the 
nocturnal light been mine alone, all might have been well; 
but Betsy Munn’s evidence was irrefutable. Great had been 
Bell’s cunning, but Betsy had outwitted her. Passing the 
house on the eventful night, Betsy had observed Marget Dun- 
das, Bell’s sister, open the door and creep cautiously to the 
window, the chinks in the outside shutters of which she cun- 
ningly closed up with “tow.” As in a flash the disgusted 
Betsy saw what Bell was up to, and, removing the tow, plant- 
ed herself behind the dilapidated dike opposite, and awaited 
events. Questioned at a special meeting of the office-bearers 
in the vestry, she admitted that the lamp was extinguished 
soon after twelve o’clock, though the fire burned brightly all 
night. There had been unnecessary feasting during the night, 
and six eggs were consumed before breakfast-time. Asked 
how she knew this, she admitted having counted the egg-shells 
that Marget had thrown out-of-doors in the morning. This, 
with the testimony of the persons from whom Sandy had 
sought condolence on the Saturday night, was the case for the 


AtTLD LIO&T iDTtlS. 


41 


pros^ution. For the defense. Bell maintained that all prep- 
arations stopped when the clock struck twelve, and even hint- 
ed that the hairn had been born on Saturday afternoon. But 
Sandy knew that he and his had got a fall. In the forenoon 
of the following Sabbath the minister preached from the text, 
“ Be sure your sin will find you out;^’ and in the afternoon 
from, “ Pride goeth before a fall.’’ He was grand. In the 
evening Sandy tendered his resignation of oflSice, which was at 
once accepted. Wobs were behind-hand for a week, owing to 
the length of the prayers offered up for Bell; and Lang Tarn- 
mas ruled in Sandy’s stead. 


CHAPTER IV. 

LADS AND LASSES. 

With the severe Auld Lichts, the Sabbath began at six 
o’clock on Saturday evening. By that time the gleaming 
shuttle was at rest, Davie Haggart had strolled into the vil- 
lage from his pile of stones on the Whunny road; Hendry 
Robb, the “ dummy,” had sold his last barrowful of “ rozet- 
ty ” (rosiny) ‘‘roots” for fire-wood; and the people, having 
tranquilly supped and soused their faces in their water-pails, 
slowly donned their Sunday clothes. This ceremony was com- 
mon all; but here divergence set in. The gray Auld Licht, 
to whom love was not even a name, sat in his high-backed 
arm-chair by the hearth, Bible or “ Pilgrim’s Progress ” in 
hand, occasionally lapsing into slumber. But — though, when 
they got the chance, they went willingly three times to the 
kirk — there were young men in the community so flighty that, 
instead of dozing at home on Saturday night, they dandered 
casually into the square, and, forming into Imots at the cor- 
ners, talked solemnly and mysteriously of women. 

Not even on the night preceding his wedding was an Auld 
Licht ever known to stay out after ten o’clock. So weekly 
conclaves at street corners came to an end at a comparatively 
early hour, one Ccelebs after another shuffling silently from 
the square until it echoed, deserted, to the town-house clock. 
The last of the gallants, gradually discovering that he was 
alone, would look around him musingly, and, taking in the 
situation, slowly wend his way home. On no other night of 
the week was frivolous talk about the softer sex indulged in, 
the Auld Lichts being creatures of habit who never thought of 
smiling on a Monday. Long before they reached their teens 
they were earning their keep as herds in the surrounding 


42 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


glens, or filling “ pirns for their parents; but they were 
generally on the brink of twenty before they thought seriously 
of matrimony. Up to that time they only trified with the 
other sex’s affections at a distance — filling a maid’s water- 
pails, perhaps, when no one was looking, or carrying her wob; 
at the recollection of which they would slap their knees almost 
jovially on Saturday night. A wife was expected to assist at 
the loom, as well as to be cunning in the making of marma- 
lade and the firing of bannocks, and there was, consequently, 
some heart-burning among the lads for maids of skill and 
muscle. The Auld Licht, however, who meant marriage 
seldom loitered in the streets. By and by there came a time 
when the clock looked down through its cracked glass upon 
the hemmed -in square and saw him not. His companions, 
gazing at each other’s boots, felt that something was going on, 
but made no remark. 

A month ago, passing through the shabby, familiar square, 
I brushed against a withered old man tottering down the 
street under a load of yarn. It was piled on a wheel-barrow 
which his feeble hands could not have raised but for the rope 
of yarn that supported it from his shoulders; and though 
Auld Licht was written on his patient eyes, I did not immedi- 
ately recognize Jamie Whamond. Years ago Jamie was a 
sturdy weaver and fervent lover whom I had the right to call 
my friend. Turn back the century a few decades, and we are 
together on a moonlight night, taking a short cut through the 
fields from the farm of Oraigiebuckle. Buxom were Craigie- 
buckle’s ‘‘ dochters,” and Jamie was Janet’s accepted suitor. 
It was a muddy road through damp grass, and we picked our 
way silently over its ruts and pools. . “ I’m thinkin’,” Jamie 
said at last, a little wistfully, “ that I micht hae been as weel 
wi’ Chirsty.” Chirsty was Janet’s sister, and Jamie had first 
thought of her. Oraigiebuckle, however, strongly advised 
him to take Janet instead, and he consented. Alack! heavy 
wobs have taken all the grace from Janet’s shoulders this 
many a year, though she and Jamie go bravely down the hill 
together. Unless they pass the allotted span of life, the 
“ poor-house ” will never know them. As for bonnie Chirsty, 
she proved a fiighty thing, and married a deacon in the Estab- 
lished Church. The Auld Lichts groaned over her fall, 
Oraigiebuckle hung his head, and the minister told her sternly 
to go ber ^^^ay. But a few weeks afterward Lang Tammas, 
the chief elder, was observed talking with her for an hour in 
Cowrie’s close; and the very next Sabbath Chirsty pushed her 
husband ia triumph into her father’s pew. The minister. 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


43 


though completely taken by surprise, at once referred to the 
stranger, in a prayer of great length, as a brand that might 
yet be plucked from the burning. Changing his text, he 
preached at him ; Lang Tammas, the precentor, and the whole 
congregation (Chirsty included), sung at him; and before he 
exactly realized his position he had become an Auld Licht 
for life. Chirsty’s triumph was complete when, next week, 
in broad daylight, too, the minister’s wife called, and (in the 
presence of Betsy Munn, who vouches for the truth of the 
story) graciously asked her to come up to the manse on Thurs- 
day, at 4 P.M., and drink a dish of tea. Chirsty, who knew 
her position, of course begged modestly to be excused; but a 
coolness arose over the invitation between her and Janet — who 
felt slighted — that was only made up at the laying-out of 
Chirsty’s father-in-law, to which Janet was pleasantly invited. 

When they had red up the house, the Auld Licht lassies sat 
in the gloaming at their doors on three-legged stools, patiently 
knitting stockings. To them came stiff-limbed youths who, 
with a “ Blawy nicht, Jeanie ” (to which the inevitable answer 
was, ‘‘ It is so, Cha-rles ”), rested their shoulders on the door- 
post, and silently followed with their eyes the flashing needles. 
Thus the courtship began — often to ripen promptly into mar- 
riage, at other times to go no further. The smooth-haired 
maids, neat in their simple wrappers, knew they were on their 
trial and that it behooved them to be wary. They had not 
compassed twenty winters without knowing that Marget Todd 
lost Davie Haggart because she “ fittit ” a black stocking with 
brown worsted, and that Finny’s grieve turned from Bell 
Whamond on account of the frivolous flowers in her bonnet; 
and yet Bell’s prospects, as I happen to know, at one time 
looked bright and promising. Sitting over her father’s peat- 
fire one night, gossiping with him about fishing-flies and 
tackle, I noticed the grieve, who had dropped in by appoint- 
ment with some ducks’ eggs on which Bell’s clockin hen was 
to sit, performing some sleight-of-hand trick with his coat- 
sleeve. Craftily he jerked and twisted it, till his own photo- 
graph (a black smudge on white) gradually appeared to view. 
This he gravely slipped into the hands of the maid of his 
choice, and then took his departure, apparently much re- 
lieved. Had not Bell’s light-headedness driven him away, 
the grieve would have soon followed up his gift with an offer 
of his hand. Some night Bell would have “ seen him to the 
door,” and they would have stared sheepishly at each other 
before saying good-night. The parting salutation given, the 
grieve would still have stood his ground, and Bell would have 


44 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


waited with him. At last, ‘‘ Will yehae’s, Bell?’’ would hare 
dropped from his half -reluctant lips; and Bell would have 
mumbled, “ Ay,” with her thumb in her mouth. ‘‘ Guid- 
nicht to ye. Bell,” would be the next remark — “ Guid-nicht 
to ye, Jeames,” the answer; the humble door would close 
softly, and Bell and her lad would have been engaged. But, 
as it was, their attachment never got beyond the silhouette 
stage, from which, in the ethics of the Auld Lichts, a man 
can draw back in certain circumstances without loss of honor. 
The only really tender thing I ever heard an Auld Licht lover 
say to his sweetheart was when Gowrie’s brother looked softly 
into Easie Tamson’s eyes and whispered, ‘‘Do you swite?” 
(sweat). Even then the effect was produced more by the lov- 
ing cast in Gowrie’s eye than by the tenderness of the words 
themselves. 

The courtships were sometimes of long duration, but as 
soon as the young man realized that he was courting he pro- 
posed. Cases were not wanting in which he realized this for 
himself, but as a rule he had to be told of it. 

There were a few instances of weddings among the Auld 
Lichts that did not take place on Friday. Betsy Munn’s 
brother thought to assert his two coal-carts, about which he 
was sinfully puffed up, by getting married early in the week; 
but he was a pragmatical, feckless body, Jamie. The for- 
eigner from York that Finny’s grieve, after disappointing 
Jinny Whamond, took, sought to sow the seeds of strife by 
urging that Friday was an unlucky day; and I remember how 
the minister, who was always great in a crisis, nipped the bick- 
ering in the bud by adducing the conclusive fact that he 
had been married on the sixth day of the week himself. It 
was a judicious policy on Mr. Dishart’s part to take vigorous 
action at once and insist on the solemnization of the marriage 
on a Friday or not at all, for he best kept superstition out of 
the congregation by branding it as heresy. Perhaps the Auld 
Lichts were only ignorant of the grieve’s lass’s theory because 
they had not thought of it. Friday’s claims, too, were in- 
controvertible; for the Saturday, being a slack day, gave the 
couple an opportunity to put their but and ben in order, and 
on Sabbath they had a gay day of it, three times at the kirk. 
The honey-moon over, the racket of the loom began again on 
the Monday. 

The natural politeness of the Allardice family gave me my 
invitation to Tibbie’s wedding. I was taking tea and cheese 
early one wintery afternoon with the smith and his wife, when 
little Joey Todd in his Sabbath clothes peered in at the passage. 


ATTLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


4S 

and then knocked primly at the door. Andra forgot himself, 
and called out to him to come in by; but Jess frowned him 
into silence, and, hastily donning her black mutch, received 
Joey on the threshold. Both halves of the door were open, 
and the visitor had looked us over carefully before knocking; 
but he had come with the compliments of Tibbie’s mother, 
requesting the pleasure of Jess and her man that evening to 
the lassie’s marriage with Sam’l Todd, and the knocking at 
the door was part of the ceremony. Five minutes afterward 
Joey returned to beg a moment of me in the passage; when I, 
too, got my invitation. The lad had just received, with an 
expression of polite surprise, though he knew he could claim 
it as his right, a slice of crumbling shortbread, and taken his 
staid departure, when Jess cleared the tea-things off the table, 
remarking simply that it was a mercy we had not got beyond 
the first cup. We then retired to dress. 

About six o’clock, the time announced for the ceremony, I 
elbowed my way through the expectant throng of men, wom- 
en, and children that already besieged the smith’s door. Shrill 
demands of ‘‘ Toss, toss!” rent the air every time Jess’s head 
showed on the window-blind, and Andra hoped, as I pushed 
open the door, ‘‘ that I hadna forgotten my bawbees.” Wed- 
dings were celebrated among the Auld Lichts by showers of 
ha’pence, and the guests on their way to the bride’s house had 
to scatter to the hungry rabble like house-wives feeding poul- 
try. Willie Todd, the best man, who had never come out so 
strong in his life before, slipped through the back window, 
while the crowd, led on by Kitty McQueen, seethed in front, 
and making a bolt for it to the “ ’Sosh,” was back in a mo- 
ment with a handful of small change. Dinna toss ower lav- 
ishly at first,” the smith whispered me nervously, as we fol- 
lowed Jess and Willie into the darkening wynd. 

The guests were packed hot and solemn in Johnny Allar- 
dice’s “ room;” the men anxious to surrender their seats to 
the ladies who happened to be standing, but too bashful to 
propose it; the ham and the fish frizzling noisily side by side 
but the house, and hissing out every now and then to let all 
whom it might concern know that Janet Craik was adding 
more water to the gravy. A better woman never lived; but, 
oh ! the hypocrisy of the face that beamed greeting to the 
guests as if it had nothing to do but politely show them in, 
and gasped next moment, with upraised arms, over what was 
nearly a fall in crockery. When Janet sped to the door her 
“ spleet new ” merino dress fell, to the pulling of a string, 
over her home-made petticoat, like the drop-scene in a thea- 


46 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


ter, and rose as promptly when she returned to slice the bacon. 
The murmur of admiration that filled the room when, she en- 
tered with the minister was an involuntary tribute to the spot- 
iessness of her wrapper, and a great triumph for Janet. If 
there is an impression that the dress of the Auld Lichts was on 
all occasions as somber as their faces, let it be known that the 
bride was but one of several in “ whites/’ and that Mag Munn 
had only at the last moment been dissuaded from wearing 
fiowers. " The minister, the Auld Lichts congratulated them- 
selves, disapproved of all such decking of the person and bow- 
ing of the head to idols; but on such an occasion he was not 
expected to observe it. Bell Whamond, however, has reason 
for knowing that, marriages or no marriages, he drew the line 
at curls. 

By and by SamT Todd, looking a little dazed, was pushed 
into the middle of the room to Tibbie’s side, and the minister 
raised his voice in prayer. All eyes closed reverently, except, 
perhaps, the bridegroom’s, which seemed glazed and vacant. 
It was an open question in the community whether Mr. Dis- 
hart did not miss his chance at weddings; the men shaking 
their heads over the comparative brevity of the ceremony, the 
women worshiping him (though he never hesitated to rebuke 
them when they showed it too openly) for the urbanity of his 
manners. At that time, however, only a minister of such ex- 
perience as Mr. Dishart’s predecessor could lead up to a mar- 
riage in prayer without inadvertently joining the couple, and 
the catechising was mercifully brief. Another prayer followed 
the union; the minister waived his right to kiss the bride; 
every one looked at every other one, as if he had for the mo- 
ment forgotten what he was on the point of saying, and found 
it very annoying; and Janet signed frantically to Willie Todd, 
who nodded intelligently in reply, but evidently had no idea 
what she meant. In time Johnny Allardice, our host, who 
became more and more doited as the night proceeded, remem- 
bered his instructions, and led the way to the kitchen, where 
the guests, having politely informed their hostess that they 
were not hungry, partook of a hearty tea. Mr. Dishart pre- 
sided, with the bride and bridegroom near him; but though he 
tried to give an agreeable turn to the conversation by describ- 
ing the extensions at the cemetery, his personality oppressed 
us, and we only breathed freely when he rose to go. Yet we 
marveled at his versatility. In shaking hands with the newly 
married couple the minister reminded them that it was leap 
year," and wished them “ three hundred and sixty-six happy 
and God-fearing days.” 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


4 !) 


Sam’Fs station being too high for it, Tibbie did not have a 
penny wedding, which her thrifty mother bewailed, penny 
weddings starting a couple in life. I can recall nothing more 
characteristic of the nation from which the Auld Lichts sprung 
than the penny wedding, where the only revelers that were 
not out of pocket by it were the couple who gave the enter- 
tainment. The more the guests eat and drank, the better, 
pecuniarily, for their hosts. The charge for admission to the 
penny wedding (practically to the feast that followed it) varied 
in different districts, but with us it was generally a shilling. 
Perhaps the penny extra to the fiddler accounts for the name 
penny wedding. The ceremony having been gone through in 
the bride^s house, there was an adjournment to a barn or other 
convenient place of meeting, where was held the nuptial feast; 
long white boards from Rob Angus’s saw-mill, supported on 
trestles, stood in lieu of tables; and those of the company who 
could not find a seat waited patiently against the wall for a 
vacancy. The shilling gave every guest the free run of the 
groaning board, but though fowls were plentiful, and even 
white bread too, little had been spent on them. The farmers 
of the neighborhood, who looked forward to providing the 
young people with drills of potatoes for the coming winter, 
made a bid for their custom by sending them a fowl gratis for 
the marriage supper. It was popularly understood to be the 
oldest cock of the farm-yard, but for all that it made a brave 
appearance in a shallow sea of soup. The fowls were always 
boiled — without exception, so far as my memory carries me, 
the guid-wife never having the heart to roast them, and so 
lose the broth. One round of whisky and water was all the 
drink to which his shilling entitled the guest. If he wanted 
more he had to pay for it. There was much revelry, with 
song and dance, that no stranger could have thought those 
stiff-limbed weavers capable of; and the more they shouted 
and whirled through the barn, the more' their host smiled and 
rubbed his hands. He presided at the bar improvised for the 
occasion, and if the thing was conducted with spirit, his bride 
flung an apron over her gown and helped him. I remember 
one elderly bridegroom, who, having married a blind woman, 
had to do double work at his penny wedding. It was a sight 
to see him flitting about the torch-lit barn, with a kettle of hot 
water in one hand and a besom to sweep up crumbs in the 
other. 

Though SamT had no penny wedding, however, we made t 
night of it at his marriage. 

Wedding chariots were not in those days, though I know of 


48 


JLTJLD Lt€HT IDYLla^ 


Auld Lichts being conreyed to marriages nowadays by horses 
with white ears. The tea over, we formed in couples, and — 
the best man with the bride, the bridegroom with the best 
maid, leading the way — marched in slow procession in the 
moonlight to Tibbie's new home, between lines of hoarse and 
eager on-lookers. An attempt was made by an itinerant mu- 
sician to head the company with his fiddle; but instrumental 
music, even in the streets, was abhorrent to sound Auld Lichts, 
and the minister had spoken privately to Willie Todd on the 
subject. As a consequence, Peter was driven from the ranks. 
The last thing 1 saw that night, as we filed, bare-headed and 
solemn, into the newly married couple's house, was Kitty 
McQueen's vigorous arm, in a disheveled sleeve, pounding a 
pair of urchins who had got between her and a muddy ha'- 
penny. 

That night there were revelry and boisterous mirth (or what 
the Auld Lichts took for such) in Tibbie's kitchen. At eleven 
o'clock Davit Lunan cracked a joke. Davie Haggart, in reply 
to Bell Dundas's request, gave a song of distinctly secular 
tendencies. The bride (who had carefully taken off her wed- 
ding-gown on getting home and donned a wrapper) coquet- 
tish ly let the bridegroom's father hold her hand. In Auld 
Licht's circles, when one of the company was offered whisky 
and refused it, the others, as if pained even at the offer, pushed 
it from them as a thing abhorred. But Davie Haggart set an- 
other example on this occasion, and no one had the courage to 
refuse to follow it. We sat late round the dying fire, and it 
was only Willie Todd's scandalous assertion (he was but a boy) 
about his being able to dance that induced us to think of mov- 
ing. In the community, I understand, this marriage is still 
memorable as the occasion on which Bell Whamond laughed 
in the minister's face. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE AULD LICHTS IH ARMS. 

Arms and men I sing; douce Jeemsy Todd, rushing from 
his loom, armed with a bed-post; Lisbeth Whamond, an 
avenging whirlwind; Neil Haggart, pausing in his thanks- 
offerings to smite and slay; the impious foe scudding up the 
bleeding Brae-head with Nemesis at their flashing heels; the 
minister holding it a nice question whether the carnage wa* 
not justified. Then came the two hours' sermons of the fol- 
lowing Sabbath, when Mr. Dishart, revolvizig like a teetotum 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


49 


in the pulpit, damned every bandaged person present, individ- 
ually and collectively; and Lan^ Tammas, in the precentor’s 
box, with a plaster on his cheek, included any one the minister 
might have by chance omitted, and the congregation, with 
most of their eyes bunged up, burst into psalms of praise. 

Twice a year the Auld Lichts went demented. The occa- 
sion was the Fast Day at Tilliedrum; when its inhabitants, in- 
stead of crowding reverently to the kirk, swooped profanely 
down in their scores and tens of scores on our God-fearing 
town, intent on making a day of it. Then did tho weavers 
rise as one man, and go forth to show the ribald crew the 
errors of their way. All denominations were represented, but 
Auld Lichts led. An Auld Licht would have taken no man’s 
blood without the conviction that he would be the better mor- 
ally for the bleeding; and if Tammas Lunan’s case gave an 
impetus to the blows, it can only have been because it opened 
wider Auld Licht eyes to Tilliedrum’s desperate condition. 
Mr, Dishart’s predecessor more than once remarked, that at 
the Creation the devil put forward a claim for Thrums, but 
said he would take his chance of Tilliedrum; and the state- 
ment was generally understood to be made on the authority of 
the original Hebrew. 

The mustard-seed of a feud between the two parishes shot 
into a tall tree in a single night, when Davit Lunan’s father 
went to a tattie roup at Tilliedrum, and thoughtlessly died 
there. Twenty-four hours afterward a small party of staid 
Auld Lichts, carrying long white poles, stepped out of various 
wynds and closes and picked their solemn way to the house 
of mourning. Nanny Low, the widow, received them deject- 
edly, as one oppressed by the knowledge that her man’s death 
at such an inopportune place did not fulfill the promise ot his 
youth, and her guests admitted bluntly that they were disap- 
pointed in Tammas. Snecky Hobart’s father’s unusually long 
and impressive prayer was an official intimation that the de- 
ceased, in the opinion of the session, sorely needed everything 
af the kind he could get; and then the silent driblet of Auld 
Lichts in black stalked off in the direction of Tilliedrum. 
Women left their spinning-wheels and pirns to follow them 
with their eyes along the Tenements, and the minister was 
known to be holding an extra service at the manse. When 
the little procession reached the boundary line between the twc 
parishes, they sat down on a dike and waited. 

By and by half a dozen men drew near from the opposite 
direction, bearing on poles the remains of Tammas Lunan in 
a closed coffin. The coffin was brought to within thirty yards 


50 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


of those who awaited it, and then roughly lowered to the 
ground. Its bearers rested morosely on their poles. In con- 
veying Lunan^s remains to the borders of his own parish they 
were only conforming to custom; but Thrums and Tilliedrum 
differed as to where the boundary line was drawn, and not a 
loot would either advance into the other’s territory. For half 
a day the coffin lay unclaimed, and the two parties sat scowl- 
ing at each other. Neither dared move. Gloaming had stolen 
into the valley when Dite Deuchars of Tilliedrum rose to his 
feet and deliberately spat upon the coffin. A stone whizzed 
through the air; and then the ugly spectacle was presented, in 
the gray night, of a dozen mutes fighting with their poles over 
a cotfin. There was blood on the shoulders that bore Tam- 
mas’s remains to Thrums. 

After that meeting Tilliedrum lived for the Fast Day. 
Never, perhaps, was there a community more given up to sin, 
and Thrums felt “called” to its chastisement. The insult 
to Lunan’s coffin, however, dispirited their weavers for a time, 
and not until the suicide of Pitlums did they put much fervor 
into their prayers. , It made new men of them. Tilliedrum’s 
sins had found it out. Pitlums was a farmer in the parish of 
Thrums, but he had been born at Tilliedrum; and Thrums 
thanked Providence for that, when it saw him suspended be- 
tween two hams from his kitchen rafters. The custom was to 
cart suicides to the quarry at the Gall a pond and bury them 
near the cairn that had supported the gallows; but on this 
occasion not a farmer in the parish would lend a cart, and for 
a week the corpse lay on the sanded floor as it had been cut 
down — an object of awe-struck interest to boys who knew no 
better than to peep through the darkened window. Tillie- 
drum bit its lips at home. The Auld Licht minister, it was 
said, had been approached on the subject; but, after serious 
consideration, did not see his way to offering up a prayer. 
Finally, old Hobart and two others tied a rope round the body, 
and dragged it from the farm to the cairn, a distance of four 
miles. Instead of this incident humbling Tilliedrum into at- 
tending church, the next Fast Day saw its streets deserted. 
As for the Thrums Auld Lf.chts, only heavy wobs prevented 
their walking erect like men who had done their duty. If no 
prayer was voluntered for Pitlums before his burial, "there was 
a great deal of psalm-singing after it. 

By early morn on their Fast Day the Tilliedrummers were 
straggling into Thrums, and the weavers, already at their 
looms, read the clattering of feet and carts aright. To con- 
vince themselves, all they had to do was to raise their eyes; 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


51 


but the first triumph would have been to Tilliedrum if they 
had done that. The invaders — the men in Aberdeen blue 
serge coats, velvet knee-breeches, and broad blue bonnets, and 
the wincey gowns of the women set off with hooded cloaks of 
red or tartan — tapped at the windows and shouted insultingly 
as they passed; but, with pursed lips. Thrums bent fiercely 
over its wobs, and not an Auld Licht showed outside his door. 
The day wore on to noon, and still ribaldry was master of the 
wynds. But there was a change inside the houses. The min- 
ister had pulled down his blinds; moody men had left their 
looms for stools by the fire; there were rumors of a conflict in 
Andra Gowrie^s close, from which Kitty McQueen had 
emerged with her short gown in rags; and Lang Tammas was 
going from door to door. The austere precentor admonished 
fiery youth to beware of giving way to passion ; and it was a 
proud day for the Auld Lichts to find their leading elder so 
conversant with apt Scripture texts. They bowed their heads 
reverently while he thundered forth that those who lived by 
the sword would perish by the sword; and when he had fin- 
ished they took him ben to inspect their bludgeons. I have a 
vivid recollection of going the round of the Auld Licht and 
other houses to see the sticks and the wrists in coils of wire. 

A stranger in the Tenements in the afternoon would have 
noted more than one draggled youth, in holiday attire, sitting 
on a doorstep with a wet cloth to his nose; and, passing down 
the commonty, he would have had to step ovei‘ prostrate 
lumps of humanity from which all shape had departed. Gavin 
Ogilvy limped heavily after his encounter with Thrummy Tosh 
— a struggle that was looked forward to eagerly as a bi-yearly 
event; Christy Davie’s development of muscle had not pre- 
vented him going down before the terrible onslaught of Joe the 
miller, and Tjang Tammas’s .plasters told a tale. It was in the 
square that the two parties, leading their maimed and blind, 
formed in force, Tilliedrum thirsting for its opponents’ blood, 
and Thrums humbly accepting the responsibility of punching 
the Fast Day breakers into the ways- of rectitude. In the 
small, ill-kept square the invaders, to the number of about a 
hundred, were wedged together at 4ts upper end, while the 
Thrums people formed in a thick line at the foot. For its in- 
habitants the way to Tilliedrum lay through this threatening 
mass of armed weavers. No words were bandied between the 
two forces; the center of the square was left open, and nearly 
every eye was fixed on the town-house clock. It directed the 
operations and gave the signal to charge. The moment six 
o’clock struck, the upper mass broke its bonds and flung itseif 


62 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


on the living barricade. There was a clatter of heads and 
sticks, a yelling and a groaning, and then the invaders, burst- 
ing through th^e opposing ranks, fled for Tilliedrum. Down 
the Tanage brae and up the Brae-head they skurried, half a 
hundred avenging spirits in pursuit. On the Tilliedrum Fast 
Day I have tasted blood myself. In the godless place there 
is no Auld Licht kirk, but there are two Auld Lichts in it now 
who walk to Thrums to church every Sabbath, blow or rain as 
it lists. They are making their influence felt in Tilliedrum. 

The Auld Lichts also did valorous deeds at the Battle of 
Oabbylatch. The farm land so named lies a mile or more to 
the south of Thrums. You have to go over the rim of the 
cup to reach it. It is low-lying and uninteresting to the eye, 
except for some giant stones scattered cold and naked through 
the fields. No human hands reared these bowlders, but they 
might be looked upon as tombstones to the heroes who fell (to 
rise hurriedly) on the plain of Oabbylatch. 

The fight of Oabbylatch belongs to the days of what are now 
but dimly remembered as the Meal Mobs. Then there was a 
wild cry all over the country for bread (not the fine loaves 
that we know, but something very much coarser), and hungry 
men and women, prematurely shrunken, began to forget the 
taste of meal. Potatoes were their chief sustenance, and when 
the crop failed starvation gripped them. At that time the 
farmers, having control of the meal, had the small towns at 
their mercy, and they increased its cost. The price of the 
meal went up and up, imtil the famishing people swarmed up 
the sides of the carts in which it was conveyed to the towns, 
and, tearing open the sacks, devoured it in handfuls. In 
Thrums they had a stern sense of justice, and, for a time, 
after taking possession of the meal, they carried it to the square 
and sold it at what they considered a reasonable price. The 
money was handed over to the farmers. The honesty of this 
is worth thinking about, but it seems to have only incensed 
the farmers the more; and when they saw that to send their 
meal to the town was not to get high prices for it, they laid 
their heads together and then gave notice that the people who 
wanted meal and were able to pay for it must come to the 
farms. In Thrums no one who cared to live on porridge and 
bannocks had money to satisfy the farmers; but, on the other 
hand, none of them grudged going for it, and go they did. They 
went in numbers from farm to farm, like bands of hungry 
rats, tand throttled the opposition they not infrequently en- 
countered. The raging farmers at last met in council, and, 
noting that they were lusty men and brave, resolved to march 


AtJLB LICET IDYLLS. 63 

in armed force upon the erring people and burn their town. 
Now we come to the Battle of Cabbylatch. 

The farmers were not less than eighty strong, and chiefly 
consisted of cavalry. Armed with pitch-forks and cumberous 
scythes, where they were not able to lay their hands on the 
more orthodox weapons of war, they presented a determined 
appearance, the few foot-soldiers who had no cart-horses at 
their disposal bearing in their arms bundles of flre-wood. One 
memorable morning they set out to avenge their losses; and 
by and by a halt was called, when each man bowed his head 
to listen. In Thrums, pipe and drum were calling the inhab- 
itants to arms. Scouts rushed in with the news that the farm- 
ers were advancing rapidly upon the town, and soon the 
streets were clattering with feet. At that time Thrums had 
its piper and drummer (the bell-man of a later and more de- 
generate age) ; and on this occasion they marched together 
through tile narrow wynds, flring the blood of haggard men 
and summoning them to the square. According to my in- 
formant’s father, the gathering of these angry and startled 
weavers, when he thrust his blue bonnet on his head and rushed 
out to join them, was an impressive and solemn spectacle. 
That bloodshed was meant there can be no doubt, for starving 
men do not see the ludicrous side of things. , The diffei-ence be- 
tween the farmers and the town had resolved itself into an ugly 
and sullen hate, and the wealthier townsmen who would have 
come between the people and their bread were flercely pushed 
aside. There was no nominal leader, but every man in the 
ranks meant to flght for' himself and his belongings; and they 
are said to have sallied out to meet the foe in no disorder. The 
women they would fain have left behind them; but these had 
their own injuries to redress, and they followed in their hus- 
bands’ wake, carrying bags of stones. The men, who were of 
various denominations, were armed with sticks, blunderbusses, 
anything they could snatch up at a moment’s notice; and 
some of them were not unacquainted with fighting. Dire 
siJence prevailed among the men, but the women shouted as 
they ran, and the curious army moved forward to the drone 
and squall of drum and pipe. The enemy was sighted on the 
level land of Cabbylatch; and here, while the intending com- 
batants glared at one another, a well-known local magnate 
galloped his horse between them and ordered them, in the 
name of the king, to return to their homes. But for the farm- 
ers that meant further depredation at the people’s hands, 
and the townsmen would not go back to their gloomy homes 
to sit down and wait for sunshine. Soon stones (the first, it is 


54 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


said, cast by a woman) darkened the air. The farmers got 
the word to charge, but their horses, with the best intentions, 
did not know the way. There was a stampeding in different 
directions, a blind rushing of one frightened steed against 
another; and then the towns-people, breaking any ranks they 
had hitherto managed to keep, rushed vindictively forward. 
The struggle at Cabbylatch itself was not of long duration; 
for their own horses proved the farmers’ worst enemies, ex- 
cept in the cases where these sagacious animals took matters 
into their own ordering and bolted judiciously for their stables. 
The day was to Thrums. 

Individual deeds of prowess were done that day. Of these 
not the least fondly remembered by her descendants were 
those of the gallant matron who pursued the most obnoxious 
farmer in the district even to his very porch with heavy stones 
and opprobrious epithets. Once when he thought he had left 
her far behind did he alight to draw breath and take a pinch 
of snuff, and she was upon him like a flail. With a terror- 
stricken cry he leaped once more upon his horse and fled, but 
not without leaving his snuff-box in the hands of the derisive 
enemy. Meggy has long gone to the kirk-yard, but the snuff- 
mull is still preserved. 

Some ugly cuts were given and received, and heads as well 
as ribs were broken; but the townsmen’s triumph was short- 
lived. The ringleaders were whipped through the streets of 
Perth, as a warning to persons thinking of taking the law into 
their own hands; and all the lasting consolation they got was 
that, some time afterward, the chief witness against them, the 
parish minister, met with a mysterious death. They said it 
was evidently the hand of God; but some people looked sus- 
piciously at them when they said it. 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE OLD DOMIKIE. 

From the new cemetery, which is the highest point in 
Thrums, you just fail to catch sight of the red school-house 
that nestles between two bare trees, some five miles up the 
glen of Quharity. This was proved by Davit Lunan, tinsmith, 
whom I have heard tell the story. It was in the time when 
the cemetery gates were locked to keep the bodies of suicides 
out, but men who cared to risk the consequences could get the 
coffin over the high dike and bury it themselves. Peter 
Lundy’s coffin broke, as one might say, into the church-yard 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


55 


in this way, Peter having hanged himself in the Whunny wood 
when he saw that work he must. The general feeling among 
the intimates of the deceased was expressed by Davit when he 
said: 

‘‘ It may do the crittur nae guid i^ the tail o’ the day, but 
he paid for’s bit o’ ground, an’ he’s in’s richt to occupy it.” 

The custom was to push the coffin on to the wall up a 
plank, and then let it drop less carefully into the cemetery. 
Some of the mourners were dragging the plank over the wall, 
with Davit Lunan on the top directing them, when they seem 
to have let go and sent the tinsmith suddenly into the air. A 
week afterward it struck Davit, when in the act of soldering a 
hole in Leeby Wheens’ flagon (here he branched off to explain 
that he had made the flagon years before, and that Leeby was 
sister to Tammas Wheens, and married one Baker Robbie, 
who -died of chicken-pox in his forty-fourth year), that when 
“ up there ” he had a view of Quharity school-house. Davit 
was as truthful as a man who tells the same story more than 
once can be expected to be, and it is far from a suspicious cir- 
cumstance that he did not remember seeing the school-liouse 
all at once. In Thrums, things only struck them gradually. 
The new cemetery, for instance, was only so called because it 
had been new once. 

In this red-stone school, full of the modern improvements 
that he detested, the old dominie whom I succeeded taught, 
and sometimes slept, during the last five years of his cantan- 
kerous life. It was in a little thatched school, consisting of but 
one room, that he did his best work, some five hundred yards 
away from the edifice that was reared in its stead. Now dis- 
mally fallen into disrepute, often indeed a domicile for cattle, 
the ragged academy of Glen Quharity, where he held despotic 
sway for nearly half a century, is falling to pieces slowly in a 
howe that conceals it from the high-road. Even in its best 
scholastic days, when it sent barefooted lads to college who 
helped to hasten the Disruption, it was but a pile of ungainly 
stones, such as Scott’s Black Dwarf flung together in a night, 
with holes in its broken roof of thatch where the rain tricMed 
through, and never with less than two of its knotted little 
window-panes stopped with brown paper. The twelve or 
twenty pupils of both sexes who constituted the attendance sat 
at the two loose desks, which never fell unless you leaned oh 
them, with an eye on the corner of the earthen floor where the 
worms came out,* and on cold days they liked the wind to turn 
the peat smoke into the room. One boy, who was supposed 
to wash it out, got his education free for keeping the school- 


56 


AtrZD LICHl IDYLLS. 


house dirty, and the others paid their way with peats, which 
they brought in their hands, just as wealthier school-children 
carry books, and with pence which the dominie collected reg- 
ularly every morning. The attendance on Monday mornings 
was often small. 

Once a year the dominie added to his income by holding 
cock-fights in the old school. This was at Yule, and the same 
practice held in the parish school of Thrums. It must have 
been a strange sight. Every male scholar was expected to 
bring a cock to the school, and to pay a shilling to the dominie 
for the privilege of seeing it killed there. The dominie was 
the master of the sports, assisted by the neighboring farmers, 
some of whom might be elders of the church. Three rounds 
were fought. By the end of the first round all the cocks had 
fought, and the victors were then pitted against one another. 
The cocks that survived the second round were eligible for the 
third, and the dominie, besides his shilling, got every cock 
killed. Sometimes, if all stories be true, the spectators were 
fighting with one another before the third round concluded. 

The glen was but sparsely dotted with houses even in those 
days, a number of them inhabited by farmer-weavers, who 
combined two trades and just managed to live. One would 
have a plow, another a horse, and so in Glen Quharity they 
helped one another. Without a loom in addition many of 
them would have starved, and on Saturdays the big farmer 
and his wife, driving home in a gig, would pass the little 
farmer carrying or wheeling his wob to Thrums. When there 
was no longer a market for the produce of the hand-loom, 
these farms had to be given up, and thus it is that the old 
school is not the only house in our weary glen around which 
gooseberry and currant-bushes, once tended by careful hands, 
now grow wild. 

In heavy spates the children were conveyed to the old 
school, as they are still to the new one, in carts, and between 
it and the dominie^s whitewashed dwelling-house swirled in 
winter a torrent of water that often carried lumps of the laud 
along with it. This burn he had at times to ford on stilts. 

Before the Education Act passed, the dominie was not much 
troubled by the school inspector, who appeared in great splen- 
dor every year at Thrums. Fifteen years ago, however, Glen 
Quharity resolved itself into a school board, and marched down 
the glen, with the minister at its head, to condemn the school. 
When the dominie, who had heard of their design, saw the 
Board approaching, he sent one of his scholars, who enjoyed 
making a mess of himself, wading across the burn to bring 


AtTLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


57 


over the stilts which were lying on the other side. The Board 
were thus unable to send across a spokesman, and after they 
had harangued the dominie, who was in the best of tempers, 
from the wrong side of the stream, the siege was raised by 
their returning home, this time with the minister in the rear. 
So far as is known, this was the only occasion on which the 
dominie ever lifted his hat to the minister. He was the Estab- 
lished Church minister at the top of the glen, but the dominie 
was an Auld Licht, and trudged into Thrums to church nearly 
every Sunday with his daughter. 

The farm of Little Tilly lay so close to the dominie^s house 
that from one window , he could see through a telescope 
whether the farmer was going to church, owing to Little 
Tilly’s habit of never shaving except with that intention, and 
of always doing it at a looking-glass which he hung on a nail 
in his door. The farmer was Established Church, and when 
the dominie saw him in his shirt-sleeves with a razor in his 
hand, he called for his black clothes. If he did not see him, 
it is undeniable that the dominie sent his daughter to Thrums, 
but remained at home himself. Possibly, therefore, the dom- 
inie sometimes went to church, because he did not want to 
give Little Tilly and the Established minister the satisfaction 
of knowing that he was not devout to-day, and it is even con- 
ceivable that had Little Tilly had a telescope and an intellect 
as well as his neighbor, he would have spied on the dominie in 
return. He sent the teacher a load of potatoes every year, 
and the recipient rated him soundly if they did not turn out 
as well as the ones he had got the autumn before. Little Tilly 
was rather in awe of the dominie, and had an idea that he was 
a free-thinker, because he played the fiddle and work a black 
cap. 

The dominie was a wizened-looking little man, with sharp 
eyes that pierced you when they thought they were unobserved, 
and if any visitor drew near who might be a member of the 
Board, he disappeared into his house much as a startled weasel 
makes for its hole. The most striking thing about him was 
his walk, which to the casual observer seemed a limp. The 
glen in our part is marshy, and to progress along it you have 
to jump from one little island of grass or heather to another. 
Perhaps it was this that made the dominie take the main road 
and even the streets of Thrums in leaps, as if there were 
bowlders or puddles in the way. It^s, however, currently be- 
lieved among those who knew him best that he jerked himself 
along in that way when he applied for the vacancy in Glen 
Quharity school, and that he was therefore chosen from among 


58 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


the candidates by the committee of farmers, who saw that he 
was specially constructed for the district. 

In the spring the inspector was sent to report on the 
school, and, of course, he said, with a wave of his hand, that 
this would never do. So a new school was built, and the ram- 
shackle little academy that had done good service in its day 
was closed for the last time. For years it had been without a 
lock, ever since a blatter - of wind and rain drove the door 
against the fire-place. After that it was the dominie's cus- 
tom, on seeing the room cleared, to send in a smart boy — a 
dux was always chosen — who wedged a clod of earth or peat 
between door-post and door. Thus the school was locked up 
for the night. The boy came out by the window, where he 
entered to open the door next morning. In time grass hid 
from view the little path that led to the old school, and a 
dozen years ago every particle of wood about the building, in- 
cluding the door and the frame- work of the windows, had been 
burned by traveling tinkers. 

The Board would have liked to leave the dominie in his 
whitewashed dwelling-house to enjoy his old age comfortably, 
and until he learned that, he had intended to retire. Then 
he changed his tactics and removed his beard. Instead of rail- 
ing at the new school, he began to approve of it, and it soon 
came to the ears of the horrified Established minister — who 
had a man (Established) in his eye for the appointiioent — that 
the dominie was looking ten years younger. As he spurned a 
pension, he had to get the place, and then began a warfare of 
bickerings between the Board and him that lasted until within 
a few weeks of his death. In his scholastic barn the dominie 
had thumped the Latin grammar into his scholars till they be- 
came university bursars to escape him. In the new school, 
with maps (which he hid in the hen-house) and every other 
modern appliance for making teaching easy, he was the scan- 
dal of the glen. He snapped at the clerk of the Board's 
throat, and barred his door in the minister’s face. It was one 
of his favorite relaxations to peregrinate the district, telling 
the farmers who were not on the Board themselves, but were 
given to gossiping with those who were, that though he could 
slumber pleasantly in the school so long as the hum of the 
standards was kept up, he immediately woke if it ceased. 

Having settled himself in his new quarters, the dominie 
seems to have read over the code, and come at once to the 
conclusion that it would be idle to think of straightforwardly 
fulfilling its requirements. The inspector he regarded as a 
jiatoral enemy, who was to be circumvented by much guile. 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


59 


One year that admirable Oxford don arrived at the school, to 
find that all the children, except two girls — one of whom had 
her face tied up with red flannel — were away for the harvest. 
On another occasion the dominie met the inspector’s trap some 
distance from the school, and explained that he would guide 
him by a short cut, leaving the driver to take the dog- cart to 
a farm where it could be put up. The unsuspecting inspector 
agreed, and they set off, the obsequious dominie carrying his 
bag. He led his victim into another glen, the hills round 
which had hidden their heads in mist, and then slyly remarked 
that he was afraid they had lost their way. The minister, 
who liked to attend the examination, reproved the dominie for 
providing no luncheon, but turned pale when his enemy sug- 
gested that she should examine the boys in Latin. 

For some reason that I could never discover, the dominie 
had all his life refused to teach his scholars geography. The 
inspector and many others asked him why there was no geog- 
raphy class, and his invariable answer was to point to his pu- 
pils collectively, and reply in an impressive whisper: 

They winiia hae her.” 

This story, too, seems to reflect against the dominie’s views 
on cleanliness. One examination day the minister attended to 
open the inspection with prayer. J ust as he was finishing, a 
scholar entered who had a reputation for dirt. 

“ Michty!” cried a little pupil, as his opening eyes fell on 
the apparition at the door, “there’s Jocky Tamson wi’ his 
face washed!” 

When the dominie was a younger man he had first clashed 
with the minister during Mr. Rattray’s attempts to do away 
with some old customs that were already dying by inches. 
One was the selection of a queen of beauty from among the 
young women at the annual Thrums fair. The judges, who 
were selected from the better-known farmers, as a rule, sat at 
the door of a tent that reeked of whisky, and regarded the 
competitors filin'g by much as they selected prize sheep, with a 
stolid stare. There was much giggling and blushing on these 
occasions among the maidens, and shouts from their relatives 
and friends to “ Hand yer head up, Jean,” and “ Lat them 
see yer een, Jess.” The dominie enjoyed this, and was one 
time chosen a judge, when he insisted on the prize’s being 
bestowed on his own daughter, Marget. The other judges 
demurred, but the dominie remained firm and won the day. 

“ She wasna the best-faured among them,” he admitted 
afterward, “ but a man maun mak the maist o’ his ain.” 

The dominie, too, would not shake his head with Mr. Rat- 


60 


AITLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


tray over the apple and loaf-bread raffles in the simithy, nor 
even at the Daft Days, the black week of glum debauch that 
ushered in the year, a period when the whole country-side 
rumbled to the farmers’ ‘‘ kebec ” laden carts. 

For the greater part of his career the dominie had not made 
forty pounds a year, but he “ died worth about three hun- 
dred pounds. The moral of his life came in just as he was 
leaving it, for he rose from his death-bed to hide a whisky- 
bottle from his wife. 


OHAPTEE VII. 

CEEE QUEERY AND MYSY DROLLY. 

The children used to fling stones at Grinder Queery because 
he loved his mother. I never heard the Grinder’s real name. 
He and his mother were Queery and Drolly, contemptuously so 
called, and they answered to these names. I remember Cree 
best as a battered old weaver, who bent forward as he walked, 
with his arms hanging limp as if ready to grasp the shafts of 
the barrow behind which it was his life to totter uphill and 
downhill, a rope of yarn suspended round his shaking neck, 
and fastened to the shafts, assisting him to bear the yoke and 
slowly strangling him. By and by there came a time when 
the barrow and the weaver seemed both palsy-stricken, and 
Cree, gasping for breath, would stop in the middle of a brae, 
unable to push his load over a stone. Then he laid himself 
down behind it to prevent the barrow’s slipping back. On 
those occasions only the barefooted boys who jeered at the 
panting weaver could put new strength into his shriveled arms. 
They did it by telling him that he and Mysy would have to go 
to the poor-house,” after all, at which the gray old man 
would wince, as if “ jonkin ” from a blow, and, shuddering, 
rise, and, with a desperate effort, gain the top of the incline. 
Small blame perhaps attached to Cree if, as he neared his 
grave, he grew a little dottle. His loads of yarn frequently 
took him past the work-house, and his eyelids quivered as he 
drew near. Boys used to gather round the gate in anticipation 
of his coming, and make a feint of driving him inside. Cree, 
when he observed them, sat down on his barrow-shafts, terri- 
fied to approach, and I see them now pointing to the work-house 
till he left his barrow on the road and hobbled away, his legs 
cracking as he ran. 

It is strange to know that there was once a time when Cree 
was young and straight, a callant who wore a flower in his 
button-hole, and tried to be a hero for a maiden’s sake. 


AULD LIGHT IBYLIS, 


61 


Before Cree settled down as a weaver, he was knife and scis- 
sor grinder for three counties, and Mysy, his mother, accom- 
panied him wherever he went. Mysy trudged alongside him 
till her eyes grew dim and her limbs failed her, and then Cree 
was told that she must be sent to the pauper’s home. After 
that a pitiable and beautiful sight was to be seen. Grinder 
Queery, already a feeble man, would wheel his grind-stone 
along the long high-road, leaving Mysy behind. He took the 
stone on a few hundred yards, and then, hiding it by the road- 
side in a ditch, or behind a paling, returned for his mother. 
Her he led — sometimes he almost carried her — to the place 
where the grind-stone lay, and thus by double journeys kept 
her with him. Every one said that Mysy' s death would be a 
merciful release — every one but Cree. 

Cree had been a grinder from his youth, having learned the 
trade from his father, but he gave it up when Mysy became 
almost blind. For a time he had to leave her in Thrums with 
DanT Wilkie’s wife, and find employment himself in Tillie- 
drum. Mysy got me to write several letters for her to Cree, 
and she cried while telling me what to say. I never heard 
either of them use a term of endearment to the other, but all 
Mysy could tell me to put in writing was: ‘‘ Oh, my son Cree! 
oh, my beloved son! oh, I have no one but you! oh, thou 
God, watch over my Cree!” On one of these occasions Mysy 
put into my hands a paper, which, she said, would perhaps 
help me to write the letter. It had been drawn up by Cree 
many years before, when he and his mother had been com- 
pelled to part for a time, and I saw from it that he had been 
trying to teach Mysy to write. The paper consisted of phrases 
such as “ Dear son Cree,” ‘‘ Loving mother,” ‘‘ I am takin’ 
my food weel,” ‘‘ Yesterday,” “ Blankets,” “ The peats is 
near done,” ‘‘ Mr. Dishart,” ‘‘Come home, Cree.” The 
Grinder had left this paper with his mother, and she had 
written letters to him from it. 

When Dan’l Wilkie objected to keeping a cranky old body 
like Mysy in his house, Cree came back to Thrums and took a 
single room with a hand-loom in it. The flooring was only 
lumpy earth, with sacks spread over it to protect Mysy’s feet. 
The room contained two dilapidated old cotiin-beds, a dresser, 
a high-backed arm-chair, several three-legged stools, and two 
tables, of which one could be packed away beneath the other. 
In one comer stood the wheel, at which Cree had to fill his 
own pirns. There was a plate-rack on one wall, and near the 
chimney-piece hung the wag-at-the-wall clock, the time-piece 
that was commonest in Thrums at that time, and that got this 


62 


AITLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


name because its exposed pendulum swung along the wall. 
The two windows in the room faced each other on opposite 
walls, and were so small that even a child might have stuck in 
trying to crawl through them. They opened on hinges, like 
a door. In the wall of the dark passage leading from the 
outer door into the room was a recess where a pan and pitcher 
of water always stood wedded, as it were, and a little hole, 
known as the “ bole,’’ in the wall opposite the fire-place, con- 
tained Cree’s library. It consisted of Baxter’s ‘‘ Saints’ 
Rest,” Harvey’s “ Meditations,” the ‘‘ Pilgrim’s Progress,” a 
work on folk-lore, and several Bibles. The saut-backet, or 
salt-bucket, stood at the end of the fender, which was half an 
old cart-wheel. Here Cree worked, whistling “ Ower the wat- 
ter for Chairlie,” to make Mysy think that he was as gay as a 
mavis. Mysy grew querulous in her old age, and up to the 
end she thought of poor, done Cree as a handsome gallant. 
Only by weaving far on into the night could Cree earn as much 
as six shillings a week. He began at six o’clock in the morn- 
ing, and worked until midnight by the light of his cruizey. 
The cruizey was all the lamp Thrums had in those days, 
though it is only to be seen in use now in a few old-world 
houses in the glens. It is an ungainly thing in iron, the size 
of a man’s palm, and shaped not unlike the palm when con- 
tracted and deepened to hold a liquid. Whale oil, lying open 
in the mold, was used, and the wick was a rush with the green 
skin peeled off. These rushes were sold by herd-boys at a half- 
penny the bundle, but Cree gathered his own wicks. The 
rushes skin readily when you know how to do it. The iron 
mold was placed inside another of the same shape, but slightly 
larger, for in time the oil dripped through the iron, and the 
whole was then hung by a cleek or hook close to the person 
using it. Even with three wicks it gave but a stime of light, 
and never allowed the weaver to see more than the half of his 
loom at a time. Sometimes Cree used threads for wicks. He 
was too dull a man to have many visitors, but Mr, Dishart 
called occasionally and reproved him for telling his mother 
lies. The lies Cree told Mysy were that he was sharing the 
meals he won for her, and that he wore the overcoat which he 
had exchanged years before for a blanket to keep her warm. 

There was a terrible want of spirit about Grinder Queery. 
Boys used to climb on to his stone roof with clods of damp 
earth in their hands, which they dropped down the chimney. 
Mysy was bedridden by this time, and the smoke threatened to 
choke her; so Cree, instead of chasing his persecutors, bar- 
gained with them. He gave them fly-hooks wMch he had 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


6S 

busked himself, and when he had nothing left to give he tried 
to flatter them into dealing gently with Mysy by talking to 
them as men. One night it went through the town that Mysy 
now lay in bed all day listening for her summons to depart. 
According to her ideas this would come in the form of a tap- 
ping at the window, and their intention was to forestall the 
spirit. Dite Gow’s boy, who is now a grown man, was hoisted 
up to one of the little windows, and he has always thought of 
Mysy since as he saw her then for the last time. She lay sleep- 
ing, so far as he could see, and Cree sat by the fireside looking 
at her. 

Every one knew that there was seldom a fire in that house 
unless Mysy was cold. Cree seemed to think that the fire was 
getting low. In the little closet which, with the kitchen, made 
up his house, was a corner shut off from the rest of the room 
by a few boards, and behind this he kept his peats. There 
was a similar receptacle for potatoes in the kitchen. Cree 
wanted to get another peat for the fire without disturbing 
Mysy. First he took off his boots, and made for the peats on 
tiptoe. His shadow was cast on the bed, however, so he next 
got down on his knees and crawled softly into the closet. With 
the peat in his hands, he returned in the same way, glancing 
every moment at the bed where Mysy lay. Though Tammy 
Gow’s face was pressed against a broken window, he did not 
hear Cree putting that peat on the fire. Some say that Mysy 
heard, but pretended not to do so for her son^s sake, that she 
realized the deception he played on her, and had not the heart 
to undeceive him. But it would be too sad to believe that. 
The boys left Cree alone that night. 

The old weaver lived on alone in that solitary house after 
Mysy left him, and by and by the story went abroad that he 
was saving money. At first no one believed this except the 
man who told it, but there seemed, after all, to be something 
in it. You had only to hit Creeps trouser-pocket to hear the 
money chinking, for he was afraid to let it out of his clutch. 
Those who sat on dikes with him, when his day^s labor was 
over, said that the weaver kept his hand all the time in his 
pocket, and that they saw his lips move as he counted his 
hoard by letting it slip through his fingers. So there were 
boys who called Miser Queery after him, instead of Grin- 
der, and asked him whether he was saving up to keep himself 
from the work-house. 

But we had all done Cree wrong. It came out on his death- 
bed what he had been storing up his money for. Grinder, ac- 
cording to the doctor, died of getting a good meal from ii 


64 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


friend of his earlier days, after being accustomed to starre on 
potatoes and a very little oatmeal indeed. The day before he 
died this friend sent him half a sovereign, and when Grinder 
saw it he sat up excitedly in his bed and pulled his corduroys 
from beneath his pillow. The woman who, out of kindness, 
attended him in his last illness, looked on curiously while Cree 
added the sixpences and coppers in his pocket to the half sov- 
ereign. After all, they only made some two pounds, but a 
look of peace came into Cree’s eyes as he told the woman to 
take it all to a shop in the town. Nearly twelve years pre- 
viously Jamie Lownie had lent him two pounds, and though 
the money was never asked for, it preyed on Cree’s mind that 
he was in debt. He payed off all he owed, and so Cree’s life 
was not, I think, a failure. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE COURTING OF T’NOWHEAD’S BELL. 

For two years it had been notorious in the square that 
SamT Dickie tvas thinking of courting T’nowhead’s Bell, and 
that if little Sanders Elshioner (which is the Thrums pronun- 
ciation of Alexander Alexander) went in for her, he might 
prove a formidable rival. SamT was a weaver in the Tene- 
ments, and Sanders a coal-carter whose trade-mark was a bell 
on his horse’s neck that told when coals were coming. Being 
something of a public man, Sanders had not, perhaps, so high 
a social position as Sam’l, but he had succe^ed his father on 
the coal-cart, while the weaver had already tried several 
trades. It had always been against Sam’l, too, that once when 
the kirk was vacant he had advised the selection of the third 
minister who preached for it, on the ground that it came ex- 
pensive to pay a large number of candidates. The scandal of 
the thing was hushed up, out of respect for his father, who 
was a God-fearing man, but Sam’l was known by it in Lang 
Tam mas’s circle. The coal-carter was called Little Sanders, 
to distinguish him from his father, who was not much more 
than half his size. He had grown up with the name, and its 
inapplicability now came home to nobody. Sam’l’s mother 
had been more far-seeing than Sanders’. Her man had been 
called Sammy all his life, because it was the name he got as a 
boy, so when their eldest son was born she spoke of him as 
Sam’l while still in his cradle. The neighbors imitated her, 
and thus the young man had a better start in life than bad 
been granted tp Sammy, his father. 



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6a 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


Gae wa wP ye.’’ 

“ What for no?” 

Gae wa wi’ ye,” said Sam’l again. 

Bell’s gei an*’ fond o’ ye, Sam’l.” 

Ay,” said Sam’l. 

“ But am dootin’ ye’re a fellbilly wi’ the lasses.” 

‘‘ Ay, oh, I d’na kin, moderate, moderate,*’ said Sam’l, in 
high delight. 

‘‘ I saw ye,” said Eppie, speaking with a wire in her 
mouth, gaen on terr’ble wi’ Mysy Haggart at the pump last 
Saturday.” 

“ We was juist amoosin’ oorsels,” said Sam’l. 

“ It’ll be nae amoosement to Mysy,” said Eppie, gin ye 
brak her heart.” 

“ Losh, Eppie,” said Sam’l, ‘‘ I didna think o’ that.” 

“Ye maun kin weel, Sam’l, ’at there’s mony a lass wid 
jump at ye.” 

“ Ou, weel,” said Sam’l, imply mg that a man must take 
these things as they come. 

“ For ye’re a dainty chield to look at, Sam’l.” 

“ Do ye think so, Eppie? Ay, ay; oh, I d’na kin am any- 
thing by the ordinar.” 

“Ye mayna be,” said Eppie, “ but lasses doesna do to be 
ower partikler.” 

Sam’l resented this, and prepared to depart again. 

“ Ye’ll no tell Bell that?” he asked, anxiously. 

“ Tell her what?” 

“ Aboot me an’ Mysy.” 

“ We’ll see hoo ye behave yerself, Sam’l.” 

“ No ’at I care, Eppie; ye can tell her gin ye like. I widna 
think twice o’ tellin her mysel’.” 

^ “ The Lord forgie ye for leein’, Sam’l,” said Eppie, as he 
disappeared down Tammy Tosh’s close. Here he came upon 
Renders Webster. 

“ Ye’re late, Sam’l,” said Henders. 

“ What for?” 

“ Ou, I was thinkin’ ye wid be gaen the length o’ T’now- 
head the nicht, an' I saw Sanders Elshioner makkin’s wy 
there an oor syne.” 

“Didye?” cried Sam’l, adding craftily; “but it’s naeth- 
ing to me.” 

“ Tod, lad,” said Henders; “ gin ye dinna buckle to, Sam 
ders’ll be carryin’ her off!” 

Sam’l flung back his head and passed on. 

“ Sam’l!” cried Henders after him. 


AULD LIGHT IDlfLLS. 


67 


Ay/’ said Sam’l, wheeling round. 

Gie Bell a kiss frae me.” 

The full force of this joke struck neither all at once. Sanr 1 
began to smile at it as he turned down the school-wynd, and 
it came upon Henders while he was in his garden feeding his 
ferret. Then he slapped his legs gleefully, and explained the 
conceit to Will’um Byars, who went into the house and 
thought it over. 

There were twelve or twenty little groups of men in the 
square, which was lighted by a flare of oil suspended over a 
c^ger’s cart. Now and again a staid young woman passed 
through the square with a basket on her arm, and if she had 
lingered long enough to give them time, some of the idlers 
would have ^dressed her. As it was, they gazed after her, 
and then grinned to each other. 

Ay, SamT,” said two or three young men, as Sam’l 
joined them beneath the town clock. 

‘‘ Ay, Davit,” replied Sam’l. 

This group was composed of some of the sharpest wits in 
Thrums, and it was not to be expected that they would let 
this opportunity pass. Perhaps when Sam’l joined them he 
knew what was in store for him. 

Was ye lookin’ for T’nowhead’s Bell, Sam’l?” asked 

one. 

‘‘ Or mebbe ye was wantin’ the minister?” suggested an- 
other, the same who had walked out twice with Christy Duff 
and not married her after all. 

Sam’l could not think of a good reply at the moment, so he 
laughed good-naturedly. 

“ Ondoobtedly she’s a snod bit crittur,” said Davit, archly. 

‘‘ An’ michty clever wi’ her fingers,” added Jamie Deuchars. 

‘‘Man, I’ve thocht o’ makkin’ up to Bell myself,” said 
Pete Ogle. “ Wid there be ony chance, think ye, Sam’l?” 

“ I’m thinkin’ she widna hae ye for her first, Pete,” re- 
plied Sam’l, in one of those happy flashes that come to some 
men, “ but there’s nae sayin’ but what she micht tak ye to 
finish up wi’.” 

The unexpectedness of this sally startled every one. Though 
Sam’l did not set up for a wit, however, like Davit, it was 
notorious that he could say a cutting thing once in a way. 

“ Did ye ever see BeH reddiii up?” asked Pete, recovering 
from his overthrow. He was a man who bore no malice. 

“ It’s asicht,” said Sam'l, solemnly. 

“ Hoo will that be?” asked Jamie Deuchars. 

“ It’s weel worth yer while,” said Pete, ‘ ‘ to ging atower to 


68 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


the T’nowhead an’ see. Ye’ll mind the closed-in beds i’ the 
kitchen? Ay, weel, they’re a fell spoilt crew, T’nowhead’s 
litlins, an’ no that aisy to manage. Th’ ither lasses Lisbeth’s 
hae’n had a michty trouble wi’ them. When they war i’ the 
middle o’ their reddin up the bairns wid come tumlin’ about 
the floor, but, sal, I assure ye. Bell didna fash lang wi’ them. 
Did she, Sam’l?'’ 

‘‘ She did not,” said Sam’l, dropping into a fine mode of 
speech to add emphasis to his remark. 

I’ll tell ye what she did,” said Pete to the others. “ She 
juist lifted up the litlins, twa at a time, an’ flung them into 
the coffin-beds. Syne she snibbit the doors on them, an’ 
keepit them there till the floor was dry.” 

Ay, man, did she so?” said Davit, admiringly. 

“ I’ve seen her do’t myself,” said Sam’l. 

‘‘ There’s no a lassie maks better bannocks this side o’ Fet- 
ter Lums,” continued Pete. 

“ Hermither tocht her that,” said Sam’l; ‘‘ she was a gran’ 
han’ at the bakin’, Kitty Ogilvy.” 

‘‘I’ve heard say,” remarked Jamie, putting it this way so 
as not to tie himself down to anything, “ ’at Bell’s scones is 
equal to Mag Lunan’s.” 

“ So they are,” said Sam’l, almost fiercely. 

“ I kin she’s a neat han’ at singein’ a hen,” said Pete. 

“ An’ wi’t a’,” said Davit, “ she’s a snod, canty bit stocky 
in her Sabbath claes.” 

“ If ony thing, thick in the waist,” suggested Jamie. 

“ I dinna see that,” said Sam’l. 

“ I d’na care for her hair either,” continued Jamie, who 
was very nice in his tastes; “ something mair yallowchy wid 
be an improvement.” 

“ A’body kins,” growled Sam’l, “ ’at black hair’s the bon- 
niest.” 

The others chuckled. 

“ Puir Sam’l!” Pete said. 

Sam’l, not being certain whether this should be received 
with a smile or a frown, opened his mouth wide as a kind of 
compromise. This was position one with him for thinking 
things over. 

Few Auld Lichts, as I have said, went the length of choos- 
ing a helpmate for themselves. One day a young man’s 
friends would see him mending the washing-tub of a maiden’s 
mother. They kept the joke until Satuj’day night, and then 
he learned from them what he had been after. It dazed him 
for a time^ but in a year or so h© grew accustomed to the idea. 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 69 

and they were then married. With a little help, he fell in 
love just like other people. 

Sam’l was going the way of others, but he found it diffi- 
cult to come to the point. He only went courting once a week, 
and he could never take up the running at the place where he 
left off the Saturday before. Thus he hac* not, so far, made 
great headway. His method of making to Bell had been 
to drop in at T’nowhead on Saturday nights and talk with the 
farmer about the rinderpest. 

The farm kitchen was BelTs testimonial. Its chairs, tables, 
and stools were scoured by her to the whiteness of Bob Angus’s 
saw-mill boards, and the muslin blind on the window was 
starched like 'a child’s pinafore. Bell was brave, too, as well 
as energetic. Once Thrums had been overrun with thieves. 
It is now thought that there may have been only one; but he 
had the wicked cleverness of a gang. Such was his repute, 
that there were weavers who spoke of locking their doors 
when they went from home. He was not very skillful, how- 
ever, being generally caught, and when they said they knew 
he was a robber he gave them their things back and went 
away. If they had given him time there is no doubt that he 
would have gone off with his plunder. One night he went to 
T’nowhead, and Bell, who slept in the kitchen, was wakened 
by the noise. She knew who it would be, so she rose and 
dressed herself, and went to look for him with a candle. The 
thief had not known what to do when he got in, and as it was 
very lonely, he was glad to see Bell. She told him he ought 
to be ashamed of himself, and would not let him out by the 
door until he had taken off his boots, so as not to soil the car- 
pet. 

On this Saturday evening Sam’l stood his ground in the 
square, until by and by he found himself alone. There were 
other groups there still, but his circle had melted away. They 
went separately, and no one said good-night. Each took him- 
self off slowly, backing out of the group until he was fairly 
started. 

Sam’l looked about him, and then, seeing that the others 
had gone, walked round the town-house into the darkness of 
the brae that leads down and then up to the farm of T’now- 
head. 

To get into the good graces of Lisbeth Fargus you had to 
know her ways and humor them. Sam’l, who was a student 
of women, knew this, and so, instead of pushing the door open 
and walking in, he went through the rather ridiculous cere- 
mony of knocking. Sanders Elshioner was also aware of thia 


70 


AXJLD :jrHT IDYLLS. 


weakness of Lisbeth, bat, tb^^ugh he often made up his mind 
to knock, the absurdity of tlie thing prevented his doing so 
when he reached the door. T^nowhead himself had never got 
used to his wife’s refined notions, and when any one knocked 
he always started to his feet, thinking there must be some- 
thing wrong. 

Lisbeth came tc Jie door, her expansive figure blocking the 
way in. 

“ Sam’l,” she said. 

‘‘ Lisbeth,” said Sam’l. 

He shook hands with the farmer’s wife, knowing that she 
liked it, but only said, “ Ay, Bell,” to his sweetheart, ‘‘ Ay, 
T’nowhead,” to McQuhatty, and “It’s yersel’, Sanders,” to 
his rival. 

They were all sitting round the fire, T’nowhead, with his 
feet on the ribs, wondering why he felt so warm, and Bell 
darned a stocking, while Lisbeth kept an eye on a goblet full 
of potatoes. 

“ Sit in to the fire, Sam’l,” said the farmer, not, however, 
making way for him. 

“ Na, na,” said Sam’l, “ I’m to bide nae time.” Then he 
sat in to the fire. His face was turned away from Bell, and 
when she spoke he answered her without looking round. 
Sam’l felt a little anxious. Sanders Elshioner, wdio had one 
leg shorter than the other, but looked well when sitting, 
seemed suspiciously at home. He asked Bell questions out of 
his own head, which was beyond Sam’l, and once he said some- 
thing to her in such a low voice that the others could not 
catch it. T’nowheacl asked curiously what it was, and Sanders 
explained that he had only said, “Ay, Bell, the morn’s the 
Sabbath.” There was nothing startling in this, but Sam’l 
did not like it. He began to wonder if he was too late, and 
had he seen his opportunity, would have told Bell of a nasty 
rumor, that Sanders intended to go over to the Free Church 
if they would make him kirk-officer. 

Sam’l had the good-will of T’nowhead’s wife, who liked a 
polite man. Sanders did his best, but from want of practice 
he constantly made mistakes. To-night, for instance, he wore 
his hat in the house, because he did not like to put up his hand 
and take it off. T’nowhead had not taken his off either, but 
that was because he meant to go out by and by and lock the 
byre door. It was impossible to say which of her lovers Bell 
preferred. The proper course with an Auld Licht lassie was 
to prefer the man who proposed to her. 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 

Ye’ll bide a wee, an’ hae something to eat?” Lisbeth 
asked Sam’l, with her eyes on the goblet. 

“ ^^o, I thank ye,” said Sam’l, with true gentility. 

“Ye’ll better?” 

“ I dinna think it.” 

“ Hoots ay; what’s to hender ye?” 

“ Weel, since ye’re sae pressin’. I’ll bide.” 

No one asked Sanders to stay. Bell could not, for she was 
but the servant, and T’nowhead knew that the kick his wife 
'3 ad given him meant that he was not to do so either. Sanders 
A'histled to show that he was not uncomfortable. 

“ Ay, then. I’ll be stappin’ ower the brae,” he said at last. 

He did not go, however. There was sufficient pride in him 
to get him off his chair, but only slowly, for he had to get ac- 
customed to the notion of going. At intervals of two or three 
minutes he remarked that he must now be going. In the 
same circumstances Sam’l would have acted similarly. For a 
Thrums man it is one of the hardest things in life to get away 
from anywhere. 

At last Lisbeth saw that something must be done. The 
potatoes were burning, and T’nowhead had an invitation on 
his tongue. 

“ Yes, I’ll hae to be movin’,” said Sanders, hopelessly, for 
the fifth time. 

“ Guid-nicht to ye, then, Sanders,” said Lisbeth. “ Gie 
the door a fling-to ahent ye.” 

Sanders, with a mighty effort, pulled himself together. He 
looked boldly at Bell, and then took off his hat carefully. 
Sam’l saw with misgivings that there was something in it 
which was not a handkerchief. It was a paper bag glittering 
with gold braid, and contained such an assortment of sweets 
as lads bought for their lasses on the Muckle Friday. 

“ Hae Bell,” said Sanders, handing the bag to Bell in an 
off-hand way, as if it were but a trifie. Nevertheless, he was 
a little excited, for he went off without saying good-night. 

No one spoke. Bell’s face was crimson. T’nowhead fidgeted 
on his chair, and Lisbeth looked at Sam’l. The weaver was 
strangely calm and collected, though he would have liked to 
know whether this was a proposal. 

“Sit in by to the table, Sam’l,” said Lisbeth, trying to 
look as if things were as they had been before. 

She put a saucerful of butter, salt, and pepper near the fire 
to melt, for melted butter is the shoeiiig-horn that helps over 
a meal of potatoes. Sam’l, however, saw what the hour re- 
quired, and jumping up, he seized his bonnet. 


n 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


Hing the tatties higher up the joist, Lisbeth,^’ he said, 
with dignity; I’se be back in ten meenits.^^ 

He hurried out of the house, leaving the others looking at 
each other. 

‘‘ What do ye think asked Lisbeth. 

“ I d’na kin,’^ faltered Bell. 

“ Thae tatties is lang o’ cornin’ to the boil,” said T’now- 
head. 

In some circles a lover who behaved like Sam’l would have 
been suspected of intent upon his rival’s Life, but neither Bell 
nor Lisbeth did the weaver that injustice. In a case of this 
kind it does not much matter what T’nowhead thought. 

The ten minutes had barely passed when Sam’l was back in 
the farm kitchen. He was too flurried to knock this time, 
and, indeed, Lisbeth did not expect it of him. 

‘‘ Bell, hae!” he cried, handing his sweetheart a tinsel bag 
twice the size of Sanders’ gift. 

‘‘ Losh preserve’s!” exclaimed Lisbeth; ‘‘ I’se warrant 
there’s a shillin’s worth.” 

‘‘ There’s a’ that, Lisbeth — an’ mair,” said Sam’l, firmly. 

‘‘ I thank ye, Sam’l,” said Bell, feeling an unwonted elation 
as she gazed at the two paper bags in her lap. 

“ Ye’re ower extravegint, Sam’l,” Lisbeth said. 

Not at all,” said Sam’l; ‘‘ not at all. But I wouldna ad- 
vise ye to eat thae ither anes. Bell — they’re second quality.” 

Bell drew back a step from Sam’l. 

“ How do ye kin?” asked the farmer, shortly; for he liked 
Sanders. 

‘‘ I speired i’ the shop,” said Sam’l. 

The goblet was placed on a broken plate on the table, with 
the saucer beside it, and Sam’l, like the others, helped him- 
self. What he did was to take potatoes from the pot with his 
fingers, peel off their coats, and then dip them into the butter. 
Lisbeth would have liked to provide knives and forks, but she 
knew that beyond a certain point T’nowhead was master in 
his own house. As for Sam’l, he felt victory in his hands, 
and began to think that he had gone too far. 

In the meantime, Sanders, little witting that Sam’l had 
trumped his trick, was sauntering along the kirk-wynd with 
his hat on the side of his head. Fortunately he did not meet 
the minister. 

The courting of T’nowhead’s Bell reached its crisis one Sab- 
bath about a month after the events above recorded. The 
minister was in great force that day, but it is no part of 
laine to tell how he bcs mself. 1 was there, and am not 


AtiLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


^3 

likely to forget the scene. It was a fateful Sabbath for T’now- 
head’s Bell and her swains, and destined to be remembered for 
the painful scandal which they perpetrated in their passion. 

Bell was not in the kirk. There being an infant of six 
months in the house, it was a question of either Lisbeth or the 
lassie’s staying at home with him, and though Lisbeth was un- 
selfish in a general way, she could not resist the delight of go- 
ing to church. She had nine children besides the baby, and 
being but a woman, it was the pride of her life to march them 
.11 to. the T’nowhead pew, so well watched that they dared not 
misbehave, and so tightly packed that they could not fall. The 
congregation looked at that pew, the mother enviously, when 
they sung the lines: 

“ Jerusalem like a city is 
Compactly built together.” 

The first half of the service had been gone through on this 
particular Sunday without anything remarkable happening. 
It was at the end of the psalm which preceded the sermon that 
Sanders Elshioner, who sat near the door, lowered his head 
until it was no higher than the pews, and in that attitude, 
looking almost like a four-footed animal, slipped out of the 
church. In their eagerness to be at the sermon, many of the 
congregation did not notice him, and those who did put the 
matter by in their minds for future investigation. Sam’l, 
however, could not take it so coolly. From his seat in the 
gallery he saw Sanders disappear, and his mind misgave him. 
With the true lover’s instinct, he understood it all. Sanders 
had been struck by the fine turn-out in the T’nowhead pew. 
Bell was alone at the farm. What an opportunity to work 
one’s way up to a proposal. T’nowhead was .so overrun with 
children that such a chance seldom occurred, except on a Sab- 
bath. Sanders, doubtless, was off to propose, and he, Sam’l, 
was left behind. 

The suspense was terrible. Sam’l and Sanders had both 
known all along that Bell would take the first of the two who 
asked her. Even those who thought her proud admitted that 
she was modest. Bitterly the weaver repented having waited 
so long. Now it was too late. In ten minutes Sanders would 
be at T’nowhead; in an hour all would be over. Sam’l rose 
to his feet in a daze. His mother pulled him down by the 
coat-tail, and his father shook him, thinking he was walkiiig 
in his sleep. He tottered past them, however, hurried up the 
aisle, which was so narrow that I)an’l Boss could only reach 
his seat by walking sideways, and was gone before the minister 


u 


AtJll) LIGHT IDYLLS. 


could do more than stop in the middle of a whirl and gape in 
horror after him. 

A number of the congregation felt that day the advantage 
of sitting in the laft. What was a mystery to those down- 
stairs was revealed to them. From the gallery windows they 
had a fine open view to the south, and as Sam’l took the com- 
mon, which was a short cut, though a steep ascent, to T’now- 
head, he was never out of their line of vision. Sanders was 
not to be seen, but they guessed rightly the reason why. 
Thinking he had ample time, he had gone round by the main 
road to save his boots — perhaps a little scared by what was 
coming. Sam’Ts design was to forestall him by taking the 
shorter path over the burn and up the common ty. 

It was a race for a wife, and several onlookers in the gal- 
lery braved the minister’s displeasure to see who won. Those 
who favored SamT’s suit exultingly saw him' leap the stream, 
while the friends of Sanders fixed their eyes on the top of the 
common where it ran into the road. Sanders must come into 
sight there, and the one who reached this point first would get 
Bell. 

As Auld Lichts do not walk abroad on the Sabbath, Sanders 
would probably not be delayed. The chances were in his favor. 
Had it been any other day in the week, Sam’l might have 
run. So some of the congregation in the gallery were think- 
ing, when suddenly they saw him bend low and then take to 
his heels. He had caught sight of Sanders’ head bobbing over 
the hedge that separated the road from the common, and 
feared that Sanders might see him. The congregation who 
could crane their necks sufficiently saw a black object, which 
they guessed to be the carter’s hat, crawling along the hedge- 
top. For a moment it was motionless, and then it shot ahead. 
The rivals had seen each other. It was now a hot race. 
Sam’l, dissembling no longer, clattered up the common, be- 
coming smaller and smaller to the onlookers as he neared the 
top. More than one person in the gallery almost rose to their 
feet in their excitement. Sam’l had it. No, Sanders was in 
front. Then the two figures disappeared from view. They 
seemed to run into each other at the top of the brae, and no 
one could say who was first. The congregation looked at one 
another. Some of them perspired. But "the minister held on 
his course. 

Sam’l had just been in time to cut Sanders out. It was the 
weaver’s saving that Sanders saw this when liis rival turned 
the corner; for Sam’l was sadly blown. Sanders took in the 
situation and gave in at one®. The last hundred yards of the 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 




distance he covered at his leisure, and when he arrived at his 
destination he did not go in. It was a fine afternoon for the 
time of year, and he went round to have a look at the pig, 
about which T'nowhead was a little sinfully puffed up. 

“ Ay,’^ said Sanders, digging his fingers critically into the 
grunting animal; quite so,” 

“ Grumph!” said the pig, getting reluctantly to his feet. 

“ Ou, ay; yes,” said Sanders, thoughtfully. 

Then he sat down on the edge of the sty, and looked long 
and silently at an empty bucket. But whether his thoughts 
were of T"nowhead"s Bed, whom he had lost forever, or of the 
food the farmer fed his pig on, is not known. 

“Lord preserve’s! Are ye no at the kirk?” cried Bell, 
nearly dropping the baby as SamT broke into the room, 

“Bell!” cried Sam’l. 

Then T’nowhead’s Bell knew that her hour had come. 

“ Sam’l,” she faltered. 

“ Will ye hae’s. Bell?” demanded Sam’l, glaring at her 
sheepishly. 

“ Ay,” answered Bell. 

Sam’l fell into a chair. 

“ Bring’s a drink o’ water. Bell,” he said. 

But Bell thought the occasion required milk, and there was 
none in the kitchen. She went out to the byre, still with the 
baby in her arms, and saw Sanders' Elshioner sitting gloomily 
on the pig-sty. 

“ Weel, Bell,” said Sanders. 

“ I thocht ye’d been at the kirk, Sanders,” said Bell. 

Then there was a silence between them. 

“ Has Sam’l speired ye. Bell?” asked Sanders, stolidly. 

“ Ay,” said Bell again, and this time there was a tear in 
her eye. Sanders was little better than an “ orra man,” and 
Sam’l was a weaver, and yet — But it was too late now. 
Sanders gave the pig a vicious poke with a stick, and when it 
had ceased to grunt. Bell was back in the kitchen. She had 
forgotten about the milk, however, and Sam’l only got water 
after all. 

In after days, when the story of Bell’s wooing was told, 
there were some who held that the circumstances would have 
almost justified the lassie in giving Sam’l the go-by. But 
these perhaps forgot that her other lover was in the same pre- 
dicament as the accepted one — that, of the two, indeed, he 
was the more to blame, for he set off to T’nowhead on the 
Sabbath of his own accord, while Sam’l only ran after him. 
And then there is no one to say for certain whether Bell heard 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


of her suitors' delinquencies until Lisbeth’s return from the 
kirk. Sam'l could never remember whether he told her, and 
Bell was not sure whether, if he did, she took it in. Sanders 
was greatly in demand for weeks after to tell what he knew of 
the aifair, but though he was twice asked to tea to the manse 
among the trees, and subjected thereafter to ministerial cross- 
examinations, this is ail he told. He remained at the pig- sty 
until Sam’l left the farm, when he joined him at the top of 
the brae, and they went home together. 

It's yerser, Sanders," said Sam'l. 

‘‘ It is so, Sam'l," said Sanders. 

Very cauld," said Sam’l. 

‘‘ Blawy," assented Sanders. 

After a pause — 

‘‘ Sam'l," said Sanders. 

‘‘ Ay." 

“ I’m bearin’ yer to be mairit." 

' ‘‘Ay." 

“ Weel, Sam’l, she’s a snod bit lassie." 

“ Thank ye," said Sam’l. 

“ I had ance a kin’ o’ notion o’ Bell mysel’,’’ continued 
Sanders. 

“ Ye had?" 

“Yes, Sam’l; but I thocht better o’t." 

“ Hoo d’ye mean?" asked Sam’l, a little anxiously. 

“ Weel, Sam’l, mairitch is a terrible responsibeelity." 

“ It is so," said SamT, wincing. 

“ An’ no the thing to tak up without conseederation." 

“But it’s a blessed and honorable state, Sanders; ye’ve 
heard the minister on’t." 

“ They say," continued the relentless Sanders, “ ’at the 
minister doesna get on sa weel wi’ the wife himsel’." 

“ So they do," cried Sam’l, with a sinking at the heart. 

“ I’ve been telt," Sanders went on, “ ’at gin you can get 
the upper han’ o’ the wife for awhile at first, there’s the mair 
chance o’ a harmonious exeestence." 

“ Bell’s no the lassie," said Sam’l, appealingly, “ to thwart 
her man." 

Sanders smiled. 

“ D’ye think she is, Sanders?" 

“Weel, Sam’l, I d’na want to fluster ye, but she’s been 
ower lang wi’ Lisbeth Fargus no to hae learnt her ways. An’ 
a’body kins what a life T’nowhead has wi’ her." 

“ Guid sake, Sanders, hoo did ye no speak o’ this afoore?" 

“ I thocht ye kent o’t, Sam’!." 


AULD LICET IDYLLS. 


77 


They had now reached the sc^uare, and the IT. P. kirk was 
coming out. The Auld Licht kirk would be half an hour yet. 

“But, Sanders,’’ said Sam’l, brightening up, “ ye was on 
jer wy to speir her yersel’.” 

“ I was, Sam’l,” said Sanders, “ and I canna but be thank- 
fu’ ye was ower quick for’s.” 

“ Gin’t hadna been you,” said Sam’l, “ I wid never hae 
thocht o’t.” 

“ I’m savin’ naething agin Bell,” pursued the other, “ but, 
man Sam’l, a body should be mair deleeberate in a thing o’ 
the kind.” 

“ It was michty hurried,” said Sam’l, wofully. 

“ It’s a serious thing to speir a lassie,” said Sanders. 

“ It’s an awfu’ thing,” said Sam’l. 

“ But we’ll hope for the best,” added Sanders, in a hope- 
less voice. 

They were close to the Tenements now, and Sam’l looked 
as if he were on his way to be hanged. 

“ Sam’l?” 

“ Ay, Sanders.” 

“ Did ye — did ye kiss her, SamT?” 

“ Na.” 

“ Hoo?” 

“ There’s was vara little time, Sanders.” 

“ Half an ’oor,” said Sanders. 

“Was there? Man Sanders, to tell ye the truth, I never 
thocht o’t.” 

Then the soul of Elshioner was filled with contempt for 
Sam’l Dickie. 

The scandal blew over. At first it was expected that the 
minister would interfere to prevent the union, but beyond in- 
timating from the pulpit that the souls of Sabbath-breakers 
were beyond praying for, and then praying for Sam’l and 
Sanders at great length, with a word thrown in for Bell, he 
let things take their nourse. Some said it was because he was 
always frightened lest his young men should intermarry with 
other denominations, but Sanders explained it differently to 
Sam’l. 

“ I hav’na a word to say agin the minister,” he said; 
“ they’re gran’ prayers, but Sam’l, he’s a mairit man himsel’.” 

“ He’s a’ the better for that, Sanders, isna he?” 

“ Do ye no see,” asked Sanders, compassionately, “ ’at he’s 
tryin’ to mak the best o’t?” 

“ Oh, Sanders, man!” said Sam’l. 

“ Cheer up, Sam’l,” said Sanders; “ it’ll sune be ower.” 


78 


auld light idylls. 


Tlieir having been rival suitors had not interfered with theit 
friendship. On the contrary, while they had hitherto been 
mere acquaintances, they became inseparables as the wedding- 
day drew near. It was noticed that they had much to say to 
each other, and that when they could not get a room to them- 
selves they wandered about together in the church-yard. 
When Sam'l had anything to tell Bell, he sent Sanders to tell 
it, and Sanders did as he was bid. There was nothing that he 
would not have done for SamT. 

The more obliging Sanders was, however, the sadder SamT 
grew. He never laughed now on Saturdays, and sometimes 
his loom was silent half the day. SamT felt that Sanders^ 
was the kindness of a friend for a dying man. 

It was to be a penny wedding, and Lisbeth Fargus said it 
was delicacy that made SamT superintend the fitting-up of 
the barn by deputy. Once he came to see it in person, but he 
looked so ill that Sanders had to see him home. This was on 
the Thursday afternoon, and the wedding was fixed for Friday. 

Sanders, Sanders!'’^ said Sam’l, in a voice strangely unlike 
his own, ‘‘ it’ll a’ be ower by this time the morn.” 

It will,” said Sanders. 

“ If I had only kent her langer,” continued SamT. 

“ It wid hae been safer,” said Sanders. 

‘‘ Did ye see the y allow floor in Bell’s bonnet?” asked the 
accepted swain. 

“ Ay,” said Sanders, reluctantly. 

“I’m dootin’ — I’m sair dootin’ she’s but a flichty, licht- 
hearted crittur, after a’.” 

“ I had aye my suspeecions o’t,” said Sanders. 

“Ye hae kent her langer than me,” said Sam’l. 

“ Yes,” said Sanders; “ but there’s nae gettin’ at the heart 
o’ women. Man Sam’l, they’re desperate cunnin’.” 

“ I’m dootin’t; I’m sair dootin’t.” 

“ It’ll be a warnin’ to ye, Sam’l, no to be in sic a hurry i’ 
the futur,” said Sanders. 

Sam’l groaned. 

“ Ye’ll be gaein’ up to the manse to arrange wi’ the minister 
the morn’s mornin’,” continued Sanders, in a subdued voice. 

Sam’l looked wistfully at his friend. 

“ I canna do’t, Sanders,” he said, “ I canna do’t.” 

“Ye maun,” said Sanders. 

“ It’s aisy to speak,” retorted Sam’l, bitterly. 

“We have a’ oor troubles, Sam’l,” said Sanders, soothing- 
ly, “an’ every man maun bear his ain burdens. Johnny 
Davie’s wife’s dead, an’ he’« no repinin’.” 


ATJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 79 

“ Ay/^ said Sam’l; “ but a death’s no mairitch. We hae 
liaen deaths in our family too.” 

‘‘It may a’ be for the best,”. added Sanders, “an’ there 
wid be a michty talk i’ the hale country-side gin ye didna ging 
to the minister like a man.” 

“ I maun hae langer to think o’t,” said Sam’l. 

“ Bell’s mairitch is the morn,” said Sanders, decisively. 

Sam’l glanced up with a wild look in his eyes. 

“ Sanders!” he cried. 

“ Sam’l?” 

“Ye hae been a guid friend to me, Sanders, in this sair 
affliction.” 

“ Nothing ava,” said Sanders; “ doun’t mention’ t.” 

“ But, Sanders, ye canna deny but what your rinnin oot o’ 
the kirk that awfu’ day was at the bottom o’t a’.” 

“ It was so,” said Sanders, bravely. 

“ An’ ye used to be fond o’ Bell, Sanders.” 

“ I dinna deny’t.” 

“ Sanders, laddie,” said Sam’l, bending forward and speak- 
ing in a wheedling voice, “ I aye thocht it was you she likeit.” 

“ I had some sic idea mysel’,” said Sanders. 

“ Sanders, I canna think to pairt twa fowk sae weel suited 
to ane anither as you an’ Bell.” 

“ Canna ye, Sam’l?” 

“ She wid mak ye a guid wife, Sanders. I hae studied her 
weel, and she’s a thrifty, douce, clever lassie. Sanders, 
there’s no the like o’ her. Mony a time, Sanders, I hae said 
to mysel’. There a lass ony man micht be prood to tak. 
A’body says the same, Sanders. There’s nae risk ava, man; 
nane to speak o’. Tak her, laddie, tak her, Sanders; it’s a 
grand chance, Sanders. She’s yours for the speirin’. I’ll gie 
her up, Sanders.” 

“ Will ye, though?” said Sanders. 

“ What d’ye think?” asked Sam’l. 

“ If ye wid rayther,” said Sanders, politely. 

“ There’s my han’ on’t,” said Sam’l. “ Bless ye, Sanders; 
ye’ve been a true frien’ to me.” 

Then they shook hands for the first time in their lives; and 
soon afterward Sanders struck up the brae to T’nowhead. 

Next morning Sanders Elshioner, who had been very busy 
the night before, put on his Sabbath clothes and strolled up to 
the manse. 

“But — but where is Sam’l?” asked the minister. “ I must 
see himself.” 

“ It’s a new arrangement,” said Sanders. 


80 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


“ What do you mean, Sanders?’^ 

“ Bell’s to marry me,” explained Sanders. 

But — but what does Sam’l say?” 

“ He’s willin’*,” said Sanders. 

“ And Bell?” 

She’s willin’, too. She prefers it.” 

“ It is unusual,” said the minister. 

‘‘It’s a’ richt,” said Sanders. 

“ Well, you know best,” said the minister. 

“You see, the house was taen, at ony rate,” continued. 
Sanders. “ An’ I’ll juist ging in til’t instead o’ Sam’l.” 

“ Quite so.” 

“ An’ I cudna think to disappoint the lassie.” 

“ Your sentiments do you credit, Sanders,” said the min- 
ister; “but I hope you do not enter upon the blessed state of 
matrimony without full consideration of its responsibilities. It 
is a serious business, marriage.” 

“ It’s a’ that,” said Sanders; “ but I’m willin’ to stan’ the 
risk.” 

So, as soon as it could be done, Sanders Elshioner took to 
wife T’nowhead’s Bell, and I remember seeing Sam’l Dickie 
trying to dance at the penny wedding. 

Years afterward it was said in Thrums that Sam’l had 
treated Bell badly, but he was never sure about it himself. 

“ It was a near thing — a michty near thing,” he admitted 
in the square. 

“ They say,” some other weaver would remark, “ ’at it was 
you Bell liked best.” 

“ I d’na kin,” Sam’l would reply, “ but there’s nae doot 
the lassie was fell fond o’ me. Ou, a mere passin’ fancy’s ye 
micht say.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

DAVIT LUNAN’S political EEMINISCEHCES. 

When an election-day comes round now, it takes me back 
to the time of 1832. I would be eight or ten year old at that 
time. James Strachan was at the door by five o’clock in the 
morning, in his Sabbath clothes, by arrangement. We was to 
go up to the hill to see them building the bonfire. Moreover, 
there was word that Mr. Scrimgour was to be there tossing 
pennies, just like at a marriage. I was wakened before that 
by my mother at the pans and bowls. I have always associ- 
ated elections since that time with jelly-making; for just as 
my mother would fill the cups and tankers and bowls with 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


SI 

jelly to save cans, she was emptying the pots and pans to 
make way for the ale and porter. James and me was to help 
carry it home from the square — him in the pitcher and me in 
a ilagon, because I was silly for my age and not strong in the 
arms. 

It was a very blowy morning, though the rain kept off, and 
what part of the bonfire had been built already was found 
scattered to the winds. Before we rose a great mass of folk 
was getting the barrels and things together again; but some of 
them was never recovered, and su^icion pointed to William 
Geddes, it being well known that William would not hesitate 
to carry off anything if unobserved. More by token, Chirsty 
Lamby had seen him rolling home a barrowful of fire-wood 
early in the morning, her having risen to hold cold water in 
her mouth, being down with a toothache. When we got up 
to the hill, everybody was making for the quarry, which being 
more sheltered, was now thought to be a better place for the 
bonfire. The masons had struck work, it being a general 
holiday in the whole country-side. There was a gi’eat commo- 
tion of people, all fine dressed and mostly with Glengarry 
bonnets; and me and James was well acquaint with them, 
though mostly weavers and the like, and not my father’s 
equal. Mr. Scrimgourwas not there himself; but there was a 
small active body in his room as tossed the money for him fair 
enough; though not so liberally as was expected, being mostly 
ha’pence where pennies was looked for. Such was not my 
father’s opinion, and him and a few others only had a vote. 
He considered it was a waste of money giving to them that 
had no vote, and so taking out of other folks’ mouths; but the 
little man said it kept everybody in good humor and made Mr. 
Scrimgour popular. He was an extraordinary affable man 
and very spirity, running about to waste no time in walking, 
and gave me a shilling, saying to me to be a truthful boy and 
tell my father. He did not give James anything, him being 
an orphan, but clapped his head and said he was a fine boy. 

The captain was to vote for the bill if he got in, the which 
he did. It was the captain was to give the ale and porter in 
the square like a true gentleman. My father gave a kind of 
laugh when I let him see my shilling, and said he would keep 
care of it for me; and sorry I was I let him get it, me never 
seeing the face of it again to this day. Me and James was 
much annoyed with the women, especially Kitty Davie, always 
pushing in when there was tossing, and tearing the very ha’- 
pence out of our hands; us not caring so much about the 
money^ but humiliated to see women mixing up in politice. 


83 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


By the time the topmost barrel was on the bonfire there was a 
great smell of whisky in the quarry, it being a confined place. 
My father had been against the bonfire being in the quarry, 
arguing that the wind on the hill would have carried off the 
smell of the whisky; but Peter Tosh said they did not want 
the smell carried off; it would be agreeable to the masons for 
weeks to come. Except among the women, there was no 
fighting nor wrangling at the quarry, but all in fine spirits. 

I misremember now whether it was Mr. Scrimgour or the 
captain that took the fancy to my father ^s pigs; but it was 
this day, at any rate, that the captain sent him the game-cock. 
Whichever one it was that fancied the litter of pigs, nothing 
would content him but to buy them, which he did at thirty 
shillings each, being the best bargain ever my father made. 
Nevertheless, I’m thinking he was windier of the cock. The 
captain, who \^as a local man when not with his regiment, had 
the grandest collection of fighting-cocks in the county, and 
sometimes came into the town to try them against the town 
cocks. I mind well the large wicker cage in which they were 
conveyed from place to place, and never without the captain 
near at hand. My father had a cock that beat all the other 
town cocks at the cock-fight at our school, which was super- 
intended by the elder of the kirk to see fair play, but the which 
died of its wounds the next day but one. This was a great 
grief to my father, it having been challenged to fight the cap- 
tain’s cock. Therefore it was very considerate of the captain 
to make my father a present of his bird, father, in compli- 
ment to him, changing its name from the “ Deil ” to the 
“ Captain.” 

During the forenoon, and, I think, until well on in the day, 
James and me was busy with the pitcher and the flagon. The 
proceedings in the square, however, was not so well conducted 
as in the quarry, many of the folk there assembled showing a 
mean and grasping spirit. The captain had given orders that 
there was to be no stint of ale and porter, and neither there 
was; but much of it lost through hastiness. Great barrels 
were hurled into the middle of the square, where the country 
wives sat with their eggs and butter on market-day, and was 
quickly stove in with an ax or paving-stone or whatever came 
handy. Sometimes they would break into the barrel at differ- 
ent points; and then, when they tilted it up to get the ale out 
at one hole, it gushed out at the bottom till the square was 
flooded. My mother was fair disgusted when told by me and 
James of the waste of good liquor. It is gospel truth I speak 
when I say I mind well of seeing Singer Davie catching the 


ATJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


83 


porter in a pan as it ran down the sire, and, when the pan 
was full to overflowing, putting his mouth to the stream and 
drinking till he was as full as the pan. Most of the men, how- 
ever, stuck to the barrels, the drink running in the street be' 
ing ale and porter mixed, and left it to the women and the 
young folk to do the carrying. Susy M’ Queen brought as 
many pans as she could collect on a barrow, and was filling 
them all with porter, rejecting the ale; but indignation was 
aroused against her, and as fast as she filled the others emptied. 

My father scorned to go to the square to drink ale and por- 
ter with the crowd, having the election on his mind and him 
to vote. Nevertheless, he instructed me and James to keep 
up a brisk trade with the pans, and run back across the gar- 
dens in case we met dishonest folk in the streets who might 
drink the ale. Also, said my father, we was to let the ex- 
cesses of our neighbors be a warning in sobriety to us, enough 
being as good as a feast, except when you can store it up for 
the winter. By and by my mother thought it was not safe me 
being in the streets with so many wild men about, and would 
have sent James himself, him being an orphan and hardier; 
but this I did not. like, but, running out, did not come back 
for long enough. There is no doubt that the music was to 
blame for firing the men’s blood, and the result most disgrace- 
ful fighting with no object in view. There was three fiddlers 
and two at the flute, most of them blind, but not the less dan- 
gerous on that account; and they kept the town in a ferment, 
even playing the country-folk home to the farms, followed by 
bands of townsfolk. They were a quarrelsome set, the plow- 
men and others; and it was generally admitted in the town that 
their overbearing behavior was responsible for the fights. I mind 
them being driven out of the square, stones flying thick; also 
some stand-up fights with sticks, and others fair enough with 
fists. The worst fight I did not see. It took place in a field. 
At first it was only between two who had been miscalling each 
other; but there was many looking on, and when the town 
man was like getting the worst of it the others set to, and a 
most heathenish fray, with no sense in it, ensued. One man 
had his arm broken. I mind Hobart, the bell-man, going 
about ringing his bell and telling all persons to get within 
doors; but little attention was paid to him, it being notorious 
that Snecky had had a fight earlier in the day himself. 

When James was fighting in the field, according to his own 
account, I had the honor of dining with the electors who 
voted for the captain, him paying all expenses. It was a lucky 
accident isiy mother sending me to the town-house, where the 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


U 

dinner came off, to try to get my fathei home at a decent 
hour, me having a remarkable power over him when in liquor, 
but at no other time. They were very jolly, however, and in- 
sisted on my drinking the captain’s health, and eating more 
than was safe. My father got it next day from my mother 
for this; and so would I myself, but it Tvas several days before 
I left my bed, completely knocked up as I was with the ex- 
citement and one thing or another. The bonfire, which was 
built to celebrate the election of Mr. Scrimgour, was set ablaze, 
though I did not see it, in honor of the election of the captain ; 
it being thought a pity to lose it, as no doubt it would have 
been. That is about all I remember of the celebrated election 
of ’32, when the Reform Bill was passed. 


CHAPTER X. 

A VEEY OLD FAMILY. 

They were a very old family with whom Snecky Hobart, 
the bell-man, lodged. Their favorite dissipation, when their 
looms had come to rest, was a dander through the kirk-yard. 
They dressed for it; the three young ones in their rusty 
blacks; the patriarch in liis old blue coat, velvet knee-breeches, 
and broad blue bonnet; and often of an evening I have met 
them moving from grave to grave. By this time the old man 
was nearly ninety, and the young ones averaged sixt}^ They 
read out the inscriptions on the tombstones in a solemn drone, 
and their father added his reminiscences. He never failed 
them. Since the beginning of the century he had not missed 
a funeral, and his children felt that he was a great example. 
Sire and sons returned from the cemetery invigorated for their 
daily labors. If one of them happened to start a dozen yards 
behind the others, he never thought of making up the distance 
If his foot struck against a stone, he came to a dead stop.; 
when he discovered that he had stopped, he set off again. 

A high wall shut off this old family’s house and garden 
from the clatter of Thrums — a wall that gave Snecky some 
trouble before he went to live within it. I speak from per- 
sonal knowledge. On« spring morning, before the school- 
house was built, I was assisting the patriarch to divest the 
gaunt garden-pump of its winter suit of straw. I was taking 
a drink, I remember, my palm over the mouth of the wooden 
spout and my mouth at the gimlet hole above, when a leg ap- 
peared above the corner of the wall against which the hen- 
house was built, Two hands followed, clutching desperately 


AtJLD UOHT idylls. 


85 


at the uneven stones. Then the leg worked as if it were turn- 
ing a grind-stone, and next moment Snecky was sitting breath- 
lessly on the dike. From this to the hen-house, whose roof 
was of ‘‘divets,^^ the descent was comparatively easy, and a 
slanting board allowed the daring bell-man to slide thence to 
the ground. He had come on business, and having talked it 
over slowly with the old man, he turned to depart. Though 
he was a genteel man, I heard him sigh heavily as, with the 
remark, ‘‘ Ay, weel. I’ll be movin’ again,” he began to rescale 
the wall. The patriarch, twisted round the pump, made no 
reply, so I ventured to suggest to the bell-man that he might 
find the gate easier. “ Is there a gate?” said Snecky, in sur- 
prise at the resources of civilization. I pointed it out to him, 
and he went his way chuckling. The old man told me that 
he had sometimes wondered at Snecky ’s mode of approach, 
but it had not struck him to say anything. Afterward, when 
the bell-man took up his abode there, they discussed the mat- 
ter heavily. 

Hobart inherited both his bell and nickname from his father, 
who was not a native of Thrums. He came from some distant 
part where the people speak of snecking the door, meaning, 
shut it. In Thrums the word used is steek, and sneck seemed 
to the inhabitants so droll and ridiculous that Hobart got the 
name of Snecky. His son left Thrums at the age of ten for 
the distant farm of Tirl, and did not return until the old bell- 
man’s death, twenty years afterward; but the first remark he 
overheard on entering the kirk-wynd was a conjecture flung 
across the street by a gray-haired crone, that he would be 
“ little Snecky come to bury auld Snecky.” 

The father had a reputation in his day for crying ” crimes 
he was suspected of having committed himself, but the Snecky 
I knew had too high a sense of his own importance for that. 
On great occasions, such as the loss of little Davy Dundas, or 
when a tattie roup had to be cried, he was even offensively in- 
flated; but ordinary announcements, such as the approach of 
a flying stationer, the roup of a deceased weaver’s loom, or 
the arrival in Thrums of a cart-load of fine ‘‘ kebec ” cheeses, 
he treated as the merest trifles. I see still the bent legs of the 
snuffy old man straightening to the tinkle of his bell, and the 
smirk with which he let the curious populace gather round 
him. In one hand he ostentatiously displayed the paper- on 
which what he had to cry was written, but, like the minister, 
he scorned to “ read.” With the bell carefully tucked under 
his oxter, he gave forth his news in a rasping voice that broke 
now and again into a squeal. Though Scotch in his unofficial 


8(5 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


conversation, he was believed to deliver himself on public oc- 
casions in the finest English. When trotting from place to 
place with his news he carried his bell by the tongue as cau- 
tiously as if it were a flagon of milk. 

Snecky never allowed himself to degenerate into a mere 
machine. His proclamations were provided by those who em- 
ployed him, but his soul was his own. Having cried a potato 
roup, he would sometimes add a word of warning, such as, “I 
wudna advise ye, lads, to hae onything to do wi’ thae tatties; 
they’re diseased.” Once, just before the cattle-market, he 
was sent round by a local laird to announce that any drover 
found taking the short cut to the hill through the grounds of 
Muckle Plowy would be prosecuted to the utmost limits of the 
law. The p^ple were aghast. “ Hoots, lads,” Snecky said; 
“ dinna fash yourseTs. It’s just a haver o’ the grieve’s.” 
One of Hobart’s ways of striking terror into evil-doers w^as to 
announce, when crying a crime, that he himself knew per- 
fectly well who the culprit was. “I see him brawly,” he 
would say, ‘‘ standing afore me, an’ if he disna instantly mak 
retribution, I am determined this very day to mak a public ex- 
ample of him.” 

Before the time of the Burke and Hare murders, Snecky’s 
father was sent round Thrums to proclaim the startling news 
that a grave in the kirk-yard had been tampered with. The 
‘‘ resurrectionist ” scare was at its height then, and the patri- 
arch, who was one of the men in Thrums paid to watch new 
graves in the night-time, has often told the story. The town 
was in a ferment as the news spread, and there were fierce, 
suspicious men among Hobart’s hearers w^ho already had the 
rifle r of graves in their eye. 

He was a man who worked for the farmers when they re- 
quired an extra hand, and loafed about the square when they 
could do without him. Ho one had a good word for him, and 
lately he had been flush of money. That was sufficient. There 
was a rush of angry men through the “ pend ” that led to his 
habitation, and he was dragged, panting and terrified, to the 
kirk-yard before he understood what it all meant. To the 
grave they hurried him, and almost without a word handed 
him a spade. The whole town gathered round the spot— a 
sullen crowd, the women only breaking the silence with their 
sobs, and the children clinging to their gowns. The suspected 
resurrectionist understood what was wanted of him, and, fling- 
ing off his jacket, began to reopen the grave. Presently the 
spade struck upon wood, and by and by part of the coffin 
came in view. That was nothing, for the resurrectionists had 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


87 


a way of breaking the coffin at one end and drawing out the 
body with tongs. The digger knew this. He broke the 
boards with the spade and revealed an arm. The people con- 
vinced, he dropped the arm savagely, leaped out of the grave, 
and went his way, leaving them to shovel back the earth them- 
selves. 

There was humor in the old family as well as in their 
lodger. I found this out slowly. They used to gather round 
their peat fire in the evening, after the poultry had gone to 
sleep on the kitchen rafters, and take olf their neighbors. 
None of them ever laughed; but their neighbors did afford 
them subject for gossip, and the old man was very sarcastic 
over other people’s old-fashioned ways. When one of the fam- 
ily wanted to go out, he did it gradually. He would be sit- 
ting “ into the fire,” browning his corduroy trousers, and he 
would get up slowly. Then he gazed solemnly before him for 
a time, and after that, if you watched him narrowly, you 
would see that he was really moving to the door. Another 
member of the family took the vacant seat with the same pre- 
cautions. Will’um, the eldest, has a gun, which customarily 
stands behind the old eight-day clock, and. he takes it with 
him to the garden to shoot the blackbirds. Long before 
Will’um is ready to let fiy, the blackbirds have gone away; 
and so the gun is never, never fired; but there is a determined 
look on Will’ urn’s face when he returns from the garden. 

In the stormy days of his youth the old man had been a 
‘‘Black Nib.” The Black Nibs were the persons who agi- 
tated against the French war; and the public feeling against 
them ran strong and deep. In Thrums the local Black Nibs 
were burned in effigy, and whenever they put their heads out- 
of-doors they risked being stoned. Even where the authorities 
were unprejudiced, they were helpless to interfere; and as a 
rule they were as bitter against the Black Nibs as the populace 
themselves. Once the patriarch was running through the 
street with a score of the enemy at his heels, and the bailie, 
opening his window, shouted to them, “ Stane the Black Nib 
oot o’ the toon !’ ’ 

When the patriarch was a young man he was a follower of 
pleasure. This is the one thing about him that his family 
have never been able to understand. A solemn stroll though 
the kirk-yard was not sufficient relaxation in those riotous 
times, after a hard day at the loom; and he rarely lost a 
chance of going to «ee a man hanged. There was a good deal 
of hanging in those days; and yet the authorities had an ugly 
way of reprieving condemned men on whom the sight-seers 


$8 


i.ULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


had been counting. An air of gloom would gather on my old 
friend’s countenance when he told how he and his contem- 
poraries in Thrums trudged every Saturday for six weeks to 
the county town, many miles distant, to witness the execution 
of some criminal in whom they had a local interest, and who, 
after disappointing them again and again, was said to have 
been bought off by a friend. His crime had been stolen en- 
trance into a house in Thrums by the chimney, with intent to 
rob; and, though this old-fashioned family did not see it, not 
the least noticeable incident in the scrimmage that followed 
was the prudence of the canny house-wife. When she saw the 
legs coming down the lum, she rushed to the kail-pot, which 
was on the fire, and put on the lid. She confessed that this 
was not done to prevent the visitor’s scalding himself, but to 
save the broth. 

The old man was repeated in his three sons. They told his 
stories precisely as he did himself, taking as long in the telling, 
and making the points in exactly the same way. By and by 
they will come to think that they themselves were of those 
past times. Already the young ones look like contemporaries 
of their father. 


CHAPTER XL 

LITTLE EATHIE’s “BUEAL.” 

Devout-ukdee-Difficulties would have been the name 
of Lang Tammas had he been of Covenanting times. So I 
thought one wintery afternoon, years before I went to the 
school-house, when he dropped in to ask the pleasure of my 
company to the farmer of Little Rathie’s “bural.” As a 
good Auld Licht, Tammas reserved his swallow-tail coat and 
lum hat ” (chimney-pot) for the kirk and funerals; but the 
coat would have flapped villainously, to Tammas’s eternal ig- 
nominy, had he for one rash moment relaxed his hold on the 
bottom button, and it was only by walking sideways, as horses 
sometimes try to do, that the hat could be kept at the angle 
of decorum. Let it not be thought that Tammas had asked 
me to Little Rathie’s funeral on his own responsibility. Burials 
were among the few events to break the monotony of an Auld 
Licht winter, and invitations were as much sought after as 
cards to my lady’s dances in the south. This had been a fair 
average season for Tammas, though of his four burials one 
had been a bairn’s— a mere bagatelle; but had it not been for 
the death of Little Rathie, I would probably not have been out 
that year at alL 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


The small farm of Little Rathie lies two miles from Thri.mc, 
and Tammas and I trudged manfully through the snow, add- 
ing to our numbers as we went. The dress of none differed 
materially from the precentor’s, and the general effect was 
of septuagenarians in one another’s best clothes, though living 
in low-roofed houses had bent most of them before their time. 
By a rearrangement of garments, such as making Tammas 
change coat, hat, and trousers with Craigiebuckle, Silva 
McQueen, and SamT Wilkie respectively, a dexterous tailor 
might perhaps have supplied each with a ‘‘fit.” The talk 
was chiefly of Little Rathie, and sometimes threatened to be- 
come animated, when another mourner would fall in and re- 
store the more fitting gloom. 

“ Ay, ay,” the new-comer would say, by way of responding 
to the sober salutation, “ay, Johnny.” Then there was si- 
lence, but for the “ gluck ” with which we lifted our feet 
from the slush. 

“ So Little Rathie’s been taen awa’,’^ Johnny would vent- 
ure to say by and by. 

“ He’s gone, Johnny; ay, man, he is so.” 

“ Death must come to all,” some one would waken up to 
murmur. 

“Ay,” Lang Tammas would reply, putting on the cop- 
ping-stone; “ in the morning we are strong, and in the even- 
ing we are cut down.” 

“We are so, Tammas; ou, ay, we are so; we’re here the 
wan day an’ gone the neist.’^ 

“ Little Rathie wasna a crittur I took till; no, I canna say 
he was,” said Bowie Haggart, so called because his legs de- 
scribed a parabola; “ but he maks a vary creeditable corp 
(corpse). “ I will say that for him. It’s wonderfu’ hoo 
death improves a body. Ye cudna hae said as Little Rathie 
was a weel-faured man when he was i’ the flesh.” 

Bowie was the wright, and attended burials in his official 
capacity. He had the gift of words to an uncommon degree, 
and I do not forget his crushing blow at the reputation of the 
poet Burns, as delivered under the auspices of the Thrums 
Literary Society. “ I am of opeenion,” said Bowie, “ that the 
works of Burns is of an immoral tendency. I have not read 
them myself, but such is my opeenion.” 

“ He was a queer stock. Little Rathie, michty queer,” said 
Tammas Haggart, Bowie’s brother, who was a queer stock 
himself, but was not aware of it; “ but, ou, I’m thinkin’ the 
wife had something to do wi’t. She was ill to manage, an’ 
Little Rathie hadna the way o’ the women. He hadjua the 


AtJLD LlCHT IDYLLS. 


90 

knack o’ managin’ them ’s ye micht say — no, Little Rathie 
hadna the knack.” 

‘‘ They’re kittle cattle, the women,” said the farmer of 
Craigiebuckle — son of the Craigiebuckle mentioned elsewhere 
— a little gloomily. ‘‘ I’ve often thocht maiterimony is no 
onlike the lucky bags th’ auld wifies has at the muckly. 
There’s prizes an’ blanks baith inside, but, losh, yer’re far frae 
sure what ye’ll draw oot when ye put in yer han’.” 

“ Oa, weel,” said Tammas, complacently, “ there’s truth 
n what ye say, but the women can be managed if ye have the 
knack.” 

“ Some o’ them,” said Craigiebuckle, wofully. 

“Ye had yer wark wi’ the wife yerseT, Tammas, so ye had,” 
observed Lang Tammas, unbending to suit his company. 

“ Ye’re speakin’ aboot the bit wife’s bural,” said Tammas 
Haggart, with a chuckle; “ ay, ay, that brocht her to reason.” 

Without much pressure Haggart retold a story known to the 
majority of his hearers. He had not the “ knack ” of man- 
aging women apparently when he married, for he and his 
gypsy wife “agreed ill thegither” at first. Once Chirsty 
left him and took up her abode in a house just across the 
wynd. Instead of routing her out, Tammas, without taking 
any one into his confidence, determined to treat Chirsty as 
dead, and celebrate her decease in a “ lyke wake ” — a last 
wake. These wakes were very general in Thrums in the old 
days, though they had ceased to be common by the date of 
Little Kathie’s death. For three days before the burial the 
friends and neighbors of the mourners were invited into the 
house to partake of food and drink by the side of the corpse. 
The dead lay on chairs covered with a white sheet. Dirges 
were sung, and the deceased was extolled, but when night came 
the lights were extinguished, and the corpse was left alone. 
On the morning of the funeral tables were spread with a white 
cloth outside the house, and food and drink were placed upon 
them. No neighbor could pass the tables without paying his 
respects to the dead; and even when the house was in a busy, 
narrow thoroughfare, this part of the ceremony was never 
omitted. Tammas did not give Chirsty a wake inside the 
house; but one Friday morning — it was market-day, and the 
square was consequently full — it went through the town that 
the tables were spread before his door. Young and old col- 
lected, wandering round the house, and Tammas stood at the 
tables in his blacks, inviting every one to eat and drink. He 
was pressed to tell what it meant; but nothing could be got 
from him except that his wife was dead. At times he pressed 


AtJiD LIGHT IDYLI^o 


91 


ms hands to his heart, and then he would make wry faces, try- 
ing hard to cry. Chirsty watched from a window across the 
street, until she perhaps began to fear that she really was 
dead. Unable to stand it any longer, she rushed out into her 
husband’s arms, and shortly afterward she could have been 
seen dismantling the tables. 

She’s gone this fower year,” Tammas said, when he had 
finished his story; “ but up to the end I had no more trouble 
wi’ Chirsty. No, I had the knack o’ her.” 

“I’ve heard tell, though,” said the skeptical Craigiebuckle, 
“ as Chirsty only cam back to ye because she cudna bear to 
see the fowk makkin’ sae free wi’ the whisky.” 

“ I mind hoo she bottled it up at ance, and drove the lad- 
dies awa’,” said Bowie, “ an’ I hae seen her after that, Tam- 
mas, giein’ ye up yer fut, an’ you no sayih’ a word.” 

“ Ou, ay,"” said the wife-tamer, in the tone of a man who 
could afford to be generous in trifles, “ women maun talk, an’ 
a man hasna aye time to conterdick them, but frae that day 1 
had the knack o’Xlhirsty.” 

“ Donal Elshioner’s was a very seemilar case,” broke in 
Snecky Hobart, shrilly. “ Maist o’ ye’ll mind ’at Donal was 
michty plague’ fc wi’ a drucken wife. Ay, weel, wan day 
Bowie’s man was carryin’ a coffin past Donal’s door, and Donal 
an’ the wife was there. Says Donal, ‘ Put doon yer coffin, my 
man, an’ tell’s wha it’s for.*’ The laddie rests the coffin on 
its end, an’ says he, ‘ It’s for Davie Fairbrother’s guid-wife.’ 

‘ Ay, then,’ says Donal, ‘ tak it awa’, tak it awa’ to Davie, 
an’ tell Im as ye kin a man wi’ a wife ’at wid be glad to 
neifer’ (exchange) ‘ wi’ him.’ Man, that terrified Donal’s 
wife; it did so.” 

As we delved up the twisting road between two fields that 
leads to the farm of Little Eathie, the talk became less gen- 
eral, and another mourner who joined us there was told that 
the farmer was gone. 

“ We must all fade as a leaf,” said Lang Tammas. 

“ So we maun, so we maun,” admitted the new-comer. 
“ They say,” he added, solemnly, “ as Little Eathie has left a 
full tea-pot.” 

The reference was to the safe in which the old people in 
the district stored their gains. 

“ He was thrifty,” said Tammas Haggart, “ an’ shrewd, 
too, was Little Eathie. I mind Mr. Dishart admonishin’ him 
for no attendin’ a special weather service i’ the kirk, when 
Finny an’ Lintool, the twa adjoinin’ farmers, baith attendit. 
^ Ou/ says Little Eathie, ‘ I thocht to myself, thinks I, if the'y 


AtJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


get rain for prayin^ for’t on Finny an’ Lintool, we’re bound 
to get the benefit o’t on Little Rathie.’ ” 

“ Tod/’ said Snecky, there’s some sense in that; an’ what 
says the minister?” 

‘‘I d’na kin what he said/’ admitted Haggart; ‘^but he 
took Little Rathie up to the manse, an’ if ever [ saw a man 
lookin’ sma’, it was Little Rathie when he cam oot” 

The deceased had left him behind a daughter (herself now 
known as Little Rathie), quite capable of attending to the ram- 
shackle “ but and ben;” and I remember how she nipped off 
Tammas’s consolations to go out and feed the hens. To the 
number of about twenty we assembled round the end of the 
house to escape the bitter wind, and here I lost the precentor, 
who, as an Auld Licht elder, joined the chief mourners inside. 
The post of distinction at a funeral is near the coffin; but it is 
not given to every one to be a relative of the deceased, and 
there is always much competition and genteelly concealed dis- 
appointment over the few open vacancies. The window of 
the room was decently veiled, but the mourners outside knew 
what was happening within, and that it was not all prayer, 
neither mourning. A few of the more reverent uncovered 
their heads at intervals; but it would be idle to deny that 
there was a feeling that Little Rathie’s daughter was favoring 
Tammas and others somewhat invidiously. Indeed, Robbie 
Gibruth did not scruple to remark that she had made “ an in- 
auspeecious beginning.” Tammas Haggart, who was melan- 
choly when not sarcastic, though he brightened up wonderfully 
at funerals, reminded Robbie that disappointment is the lot of 
man on his earthly pilgrimage; but Haggart knew who were 
to be invited back to the farm, after the burial, and was in- 
clined to make much of his position. The secret would doubt- 
less have been wormed from him had not public attention been 
directed into another channel. A pra\'er was certainly being 
offered up inside, but the voice was not the voice of the min- 
ister. 

Lang Tammas told me afterward that it had seemed at one 
time “ vara queistionable ” whether Little Rathie would be 
buried that day at all. The incomprehensible absence of Mr. 
Dishart (afterward satisfactorily explained) had raised the un- 
expected question of the legality of a burial in a case where 
the minister had not prayed over the “corp.” There had 
even been an indulgence in hot words, and the Reverend Alex- 
ander Kewans, a “ stickit minister,” but not of the Auld Licht 
persuasion, had withdrawn in dudgeon on hearing Tammas 
asked to conduct the ceremony instead of himself. But, great 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


93 


as Tammas was on religious questions, pillar of the AuJd 
Licht kirk, the Shorter Catechism at his finger-ends, a sad 
want of words at the very time when he needed them most in- 
capacitated him for prayer in public, and it was providential 
that Bowie proved himself a man of parts. But Tammas 
tells me that the wright grossly abused his position by praying 
at such length that Oraigiebuckle fell asleep, and the mistress 
had to rise and hang the pot on the fire higher up the joist, 
lest its contents should burn before the return from the fu- 
neral. Lowery grew the sky, and more and more anxious the 
face of Little Rathie's daughter, and still Bowie prayed on. 
Had it not been for the impatience of the precentor and the 
grumbling of the mourners outside, there is no saying when 
the remains would have been lifted through the “ bole,’^ or 
little window. 

Hearses had hardly come in at this time, and the coffin was 
carried by the mourners on long stakes. The straggling pro- 
cession of pedestrians behind wound its slow way in the wan- 
ing light to the kirk-yard, showing startlingly black against 
the dazzling snow; and it was not until the earth rattled on 
the coffin-lid that Little Rathie’s nearest male relative seemed 
to remember his last mournful duty to the dead. Sidling up 
to the favored mourners, he remarked casually and in the most 
emotionless tone he could assume: “ They’re expec’in’ ye to 
stap doon the length o’ Little Rathie noo. Ay, ay, he’s gone. 
Na, na, nae refoosal, Da-avit; ye was aye a guid friend till 
him, an’ it’s the onything a body can do for him noo.” 

Though the uninvited slunk away sorrowfully, the enter- 
tainment provided at Auld Licht houses of mourning was 
characteristic of a stern and sober sect. They got to eat and 
to drink to the extent, as a rule, of a ‘‘ lippy ’’ of shortbread 
and a ‘‘ brew ” of toddy; but open Bibles lay on the table, and 
the eyes of each were on his neighbors to catch them trans- 
gressing, and offer up a prayer for them on the spot. Ah 
me! there is no Bowie nowadays to fill an absent minister’s 
shoes. 


CHAPTER XII. 

A LITEKAKY CLUB. 

The ministers in the town did not hold with literature. 
When the most notorious of the clubs met in the town-house, 
under the presidentship of Gavin Ogilvy, who was no better 
than a poacher, and was troubled in his mind because writers 
called rope a poet, there was frequently a wrangle over the 


94 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


question, Is literature necessarily immoral? It was a fighting 
club, and on Friday nights the few respectable. God-fearing 
members dandered to the town-house, as if merely curious to 
have another look at the building. If Lang Tammas, who was 
dead against letters, was in sight, they wandered off, but when 
there were no spies abroad they slunk up the stair. The at- 
tendance was greatest on dark nights, though Gavin himself 
and some other characters would have marched straight to the 
meeting in broad daylight. Tammas Haggart, who did not 
think much of Milton’s devil, had married a gypsy woman for 
an experiment, and the Coat of Many Colors did not know 
where his wife was. As a rule, however, the members were 
wild bachelors. When they married they had to settle down. 

Gavin’s essay on Will’um Pitt, the Father of the Taxes, led 
to the club’s being bundled out of the town-house, where 
people said it should never have been allowed to meet. There 
was a terrible town when Tammas Haggart then disclosed the 
secret of Mr. Byars’s supposed approval of the club. Mr. 
Byars was the Auld Licht minister whom Mr. Dishart succeed- 
ed, and it was well known that he had advised the authorities 
to grant the use of the little town-house to the club on Friday 
evenings. As he solemnly warned his congregation against 
attending the meetings, the position he had taken up created 
talk, and Lang Tammas called at the manse with Sanders 
Whamond to remonstrate. The minister, however, harangued 
them on their sinfulness in daring to question the like of him, 
and they had to retire vanquished, though dissatisfied. Then 
came the disclosures of Tammas Haggart, who was never 
properly secured by the Auld Lichts until Mr. Dishart took 
him in hand. It was Tammas who wrote anonymous letters 
to Mr. Byars about the scarlet woman, and, strange to say, 
this led to the club’s being allowed to meet in the town-house. 
The minister, after many days, discovered who his correspond- 
ent was, and succeeded in inveigling the stone-breaker to the 
manse. There, with the door snibbed, he opened out on 
Tammas, who, after his usual manner when hard pressed, 
pretended to be deaf. This sudden fit of deafness so exasper- 
ated the minister that he flung a book at Tammas. The scene 
that followed was one that few Auld Licht manses can have 
witnessed. According to Tammas, the book had hardly 
reached the floor when the minister turned white. Tammas 
picked up the missile. It was a Bible. The two men looked 
at each other. Beneath the window Mr. Byars’s children 
were prattling. His wife was moving about in* the next room, 
littlo thinking what had happened. The minister held out 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


95 


liis hand for the Bible, but Tammas shook his head, and then 
Mr. Byars shrunk into a chair. Finally, it was arranged that 
if Tammas kept the affair to himself, the minister would say 
a good word to the bailie about the literary club. After that 
the stone-breaker used to go from house to house, twisting his 
mouth to the side and remarking that he could tell such a 
tale of Mr. Byars as would lead to a split in the kirk. When 
the town-house was locked on the club, Tammas spoke out, but 
though the scandal ran froni door to door, as 1 have seen a 
pig in a fluster do, the minister did not lose his place. Tam- 
mas preserved the Bible, and showed it complacently to visit- 
ors as the present he got from Mr. Byars. The minister knew 
this, and it turned his temper sour. Tammas’ s proud mo- 
ments, after that, were when he passed the minister. 

Driven from the town-house, literature found a table with 
forms round it in a tavern hard by, where the club, lopped of 
its most respectable members, kept the blinds down and 
talked openly of Shakespeare. It was a low-roofed room, with 
pieces of lime hanging from the ceiling and peeling walls. 
The floor had a slope that tended to fling the debater forward, 
and its boards, lying loose on an uneven foundation, rose and 
looked at you as you crossed the room. In winter, when the 
meetings were held regularly every fortnight, a fire of peat, 
sod, and dross lighted up the curious company who sat round 
the table shaking their heads over Shelley’s mysticism, or re- 
quired to be called to order because they would not wait their 
turn to deny an essayist’s assertion that Berkeley’s style was 
superior to David Hume’s. Davit Hume, they said, and 
Watty Scott. Burns was simply referred to as Rob or Robbie. 

There was little drinking at these meetings, for the members 
knew what they were talking about, and your mind had to 
gallop to keep up with the flow of reasoning. Thrums is 
rather a remarkable town. There are scores and scores of 
houses in it that have sent their sons to college (by what a 
struggle !), some to make their way to the front in their pro- 
fessions, and others, perhaps, despite their broadcloth, never 
to be a patch on their parents. In that literary club there were 
men of a reading so wide and catholic that it might put some 
graduates of the universities to shame, and of an intellect so 
keen, that had it not had a crook in it, their fame would have 
crossed the county. Most of them had but a threadbare ex- 
istence, for you weave slowly with a Wordsworth open before 
you, and some were strange Bohemians (which does not do in 
Thrums), yet others wandered into the world and compelled 
it to recognize them. There is a London barrister whose fa- 


96 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


ther belonged to the club. Not many years ago a man died 
on the staff of the Times, who, when he was a weaver near 
Thrums, was one of the club^s prominent members. He 
taught himself short-hand by the light of a cruizey, and got a 
post on a Perth paper, afterward on the Scotsman, and the 
Witness, and finally on the Times, Several other men of his 
type had a history worth reading, but it is not for me to write. 
Yet I may say that there is still at least one of the original 
members of the club left behind in Thrums to whom some of 
the literary dandies might lift their hats. 

Gavin Ogilvy I only knew as a weaver and a poacher; a 
lank, long-armed man, much bent from crouching in ditches 
whence he watched his snares. To the young he was a ro- 
mantic figure, because they saw him frequently in the fields 
with his call-birds tempting siskins, yellow yites, and linties to 
twigs which he had previously smeared with lime. He made 
the lime from the tough roots of holly; sometimes from lin- 
seed oil, which is boiled until thick, when it is taken out of 
the pot and drawn and stretched with the hands like elastic. 
Gavin was also a famous hare-snarer at a time when the plow- 
man looked upon this form of poaching as his perquisite. The 
snare was of wire, so constructed that the hare entangled itself 
the more when trying to escape, and it was placed across the 
little roads through the fields to which hares confine them- 
selves, with a heavy stone attached to it by a string. Once 
Gavin caught a toad (fox) instead of a hare, and did not dis- 
cover his mistake until it had him by the teeth. He was not 
able to weave for two months. The grouse-netting was more 
lucrative and more exciting, and women engaged in it with 
their husbands. It is told of Gavin that he was on one occa- 
sion chased by a gamekeeper over moor and hill for twenty 
miles, and that by and by when the one sunk down exhausted, 
so did the other. They would sit fifty yards apart glaring at 
each other. The poacher eventually escaped. This, curious 
as it may seem, is the man whose eloquence at the club has 
not been forgotten in fifty years. “ Thus did he stand,” I 
have been told recently, “ exclaiming in language sublime 
that the soul shall bloom in immortal youth through the ruin 
and wrack of time.” 

Another member read to the club an account of his journey 
to Lochnagar, which was afterward published in Chambers* 
Journal. He was celebrated for his descriptions of scenery, 
and was not the only member of the club whose essays got 
into print. More memorable, perhaps, was an itinerant match- 
seller known to Thrums and the surrounding towns as the 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


97 


Mteiikry spunk-seller. He was a wizened, shivering old man, 
often barefooted, wearing at the best a thin, ragged coat that 
had been black, but was green-brown with age, and he made 
his spunks as well as sold them. He brought Bacon and 
Adam Smith into Thrums, and he loved to recite long screeds 
from Spenser, with a running commentary on the versification 
and the luxuriance of the diction. Of Jamie^s death I do not 
care to write. He went without many a dinner in order to buy 
a book. 

The Coat of Many Colors and Silva Robbie were two street 
preachers who gave the Thrums ministers some work. They 
occasionally appeared at the club. The Coat of Many Colors 
was so called because he wore a garment consisting of patches 
of cloth of various colors sewed together. It hung down to his 
heels. He may have been crackSi rather than inspired, but 
he was a power in the square where he preached, the women 
declaring that he was gifted by God. An awe filled even the 
men when he admonished them for using strong language, for 
at such a time he would remind them of the woe which fell 
upon Tibbie Mason. Tibbie had been notorious in her day 
for evil-speaking, especially for her free use of the word hand- 
less, which she flung a hundred times in a week at her man, 
and even at her old mother. Her punishment was to have a 
son born without hands. The Coat of Many Colors also told 
of the liar who exclaimed, ‘‘ If this is not gospel true, may I 
stand here forever,^’ and who is standing on that spot still, 
only nobody knows where it is. George Wishart was the 
Coat’s hero, and often he has told in the square how Wishart 
saved Dundee. It was the time when the plague lay over 
Scotland, and in Dundee they saw it approaching from the 
west in the form of a great black cloud. They fell on their 
Imees and prayed, crying to the cloud to pass them by, and 
while they prayed it came nearer. Then they looked around 
for the most holy man among them, to intervene with God on 
their behalf. All eyes turned to George Wishart, and he 
stood up, stretching his arms to the cloud and prayed, and it 
rolled back. Thus Dundee was saved from the plague, but 
when Wishart ended his prayer he was alone, for the people 
had all returned to their homes. Less of a genuine man than 
the Coat of Many Colors was Silva Robbie, who had horrid fits 
of laughing in the middle of his prayers, and even fell in a 
paroxysm of laughter from the chair on which he stood. In 
the club he said things not to be borne, though logical up to a 
certain point. 

Tammas Haggart was the laost sarcastic member of the 


98 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


club, being celebrated for his sarcasm far and wide. It was a 
remarkable thing about him, often spoken of, that if you 
went to Tammas with a stranger and asked him to say a sar- 
castic thing that the man might take away as a specimen, he 
could not do it. ‘‘ Na, na,^^ Tammas would say, after a few 
trials, referring to sarcasm, ‘‘ shea’s no a crittur to force. Ye 
maun lat her tak her ain time. Sometimes she’s dry like the 
pump, an’ syne, again, oot she comes in a gush.’^ The most 
sarcastic thing the stone-breaker ever said was frequently mar- 
veled over in Thrums, both before and behind his face, but, 
unfortunately, no one could ever remember what it was. The 
subject, however, was Cha Tamson’s potato pit. There is 
little doubt that it was a fit of sarcasm that induced Tammas 
to marry a gypsy lassie. Mr. Byars would not join them, so 
Tammas had himself married by Jimmy Pawse, the gay little 
gypsy king, and after that the minister remarried them. The 
marriage over the tongs is a thing to scandalize any well- 
brought-up person, for before he joined the couple’s hands, 
Jimmy jumped about in a startling way, uttering wild gibber- 
ish, and after the ceremony was over there was rough work, 
with incantations and blowing on pipes. Tammas always 
held that this marriage turned out better than he had expect- 
ed, though he had his trials like other married men. Among 
them was Chirsty’s way of climbing on to the dresser to get 
at the higher part of the plate-rack. One evening I called in 
to have a smoke with the stone-breaker, and while we were 
talking Chirsty climbed the dresser. The next moment she 
was on the floor on her back, wailing, but Tammas smoked on 
imperturbably. Do you not see what has happened, man?” 
I cried. “ Ou,” said Tammas, ‘‘she’s aye fa’in aff the 
dresser.” 

Of the school-masters who were at times members of the 
club, Mr. Dickie was the ripest scholar, but my predecessor at 
the school-house had a way of sneering at him that was as 
good as sarcasm. When they were on their legs at the same 
time, asking each other passionately to be calm, and rolling 
out lines from. Homer, that made the innkeeper look fearfully 
to the fastenings of the door, their heads very nearly came 
together, although the table was between them. The old dom- 
inie had an advantage in being the shorter man, for he could 
hammer on the table as he spoke, while gaunt Mr. Dickie had 
to stoop to it. Mr. McRittie’s arguments were a series of 
nails that he knocked into the table, and he did it in a work- 
manlike manner. Mr. Dickie, though he kept firm on his 
feet, swayed his body until by and by his head was rotating in 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


99 


a large circle. The mathematical figure he made was a cone 
revolving on its apex. Gavin’s reinstallment in the chair year 
after year was made by the disappointed dominie the subject 
of some tart verses which he called an epode, but Gavin 
crushed him when they were read before the club. ‘‘ Satire/’ 
he said, is a legitimate weapon, used with michty effect by 
Swift, Sammy Butler, and others, and 1 doun’t object to being 
made the subject of creeticism. It has often been called a 
t’nife ’* (knife), ‘‘ but them as is not used to t’nives cuts their 
hands, and yeTl a’,pbserve that Mr. McRittie’s fingers is 
bleedin’.” All eyes were turned upon the dominie’s hand, 
and though he pocketed it smartly, several members had seen 
the blood. The dominie was a rare visitor at the club after 
that, though he outlived poor Mr. Dickie by many years. Mr. 
Dickie was a teacher in Tilliedrum, but he was ruined by 
drink. He wandered from town io town, reciting Greek and 
Latin poetry to any one who would give him a dram, and 
sometimes he wept and moaned aloud in the street, crying, 
“ Poor Mr. Dickie! poor Mr. Dickie!” 

The leading poet in a club of poets was Dite Walls, who 
kept a school when there were scholars, and weaved when 
there were none. He had a song that was published in a 
half-penny leaflet about the famous lawsuit instituted by the 
farmer of Teuchbusses against the Laird of Drumlee. The 
laird was alleged to have taken from the land of Teuchbusses 
sufficient broom to make a besom thereof, and I am not cer- 
tain that the case is settled to this day. It was Dite or another 
member of the club who wrote, “ The Wife o’ Deeside,” of 
all the songs of the period the one that had the greatest vogue 
in the county at a time when Lord Jeffrey was cursed at every 
fireside in Thrums. The wife of Deeside was tried for the 
murder of her servant, who had infatuated the young laird, 
and had it not been that Jeffrey defended her, she would, in 
the words of the song, have “ hung like a troot.” It is not 
easy now to conceive the rage against Jeffrey when the woman 
was acquitted. The song was sung and recited in the streets, 
at the smithy, at the bothies, and by firesides, to the shaking 
of fists and the grinding of teeth. It began: 

** Ye’ll a’ hae bear tell o’ the wife o’ Deeside, 

Ye’ll a’ hae hear tell o’ the wife o’ Deeside, 

She poisoned her maid for to keep up her pride. 

Ye’ll a’ hae hear tell o’ the wife o’ Deeside.” 

Before the excitement had abated, Jeffrey was in Tilliedrum 
for electioneering purposes, and he was mobbed in the streets. 


100 


AULD LIGHT IDYLLS. 


Angry crowds pressed close to howl, ‘‘ Wife o’ Deeside!” at 
him. A contingent from Thrums was there, and it was long 
afterward told of Sam’l Todd, by himself, that he hit Jeffrey 
on the back of the head with a clod of earth. 

Johnny McQuhatty, a brother of the T’nowhead farmer, 
was the one taciturn member of the club, and you had only to 
look at him to know that he had a secret. He was a great 
genius at the hand-loom, and invented a loom for the weaving 
of linen such as has not been seen before or since. In the 
day-time he kept guard over his shop,” into which no one 
was allowed to enter, and the fame of his loom was so great 
that he had to watch over it with a gun. At night he weaved, 
and when the result at last pleased him, he made the linen into 
shirts, all of which he stitched together with his own hands, 
even to the button-holes. He sent one shirt to the queen, and 
another to the Duchess of Athole, mentioning a very large 
price for them, which he got. Then he destroyed his won- 
derful loom, and how it was no one will ever know. Johnny 
only took to literature after he had made his name, and he 
seldom spoke at the club except when ghosts and the like 
were the subject of debate, as they tended to be when the 
farmer of Muckle Haws could get in a word. Muckle Haws 
was fascinated by Johnny’s sneers at superstition, and some- 
times on dark nights the inventor had to make his courage 
good by seeing the farmer past the doulie-yates (ghost-gates), 
which Muckle Haws had to go perilously near on his way 
home. Johnny was a small man, but it was the burly farmer 
who shook at sight of the gates standing out white in the 
night. White gates have an evil name still, and Muckle Haws 
was full of horrors as he drew near them, clinging to Johnny’s 
arm. It was on such a night, he would remember, that he 
saw the White Lady go through the gates, greeting sorely, 
with a dead bairn in her arms, while water kelpies laughed and 
splashed in the pools, and the witches danced in a ring round 
Broken Buss. That very night twelve months ago the pack- 
man was murdered at Broken Buss, and Easie Pettie hanged 
herself on the stump of a tree. Last night there were ugly 
sounds from the quarry of Croup, where the bairn lies buried, 
and it’s not mous (canny) to be out at such a time. The 
farmer had seen specter maidens walking round the ruined 
castle of Darg, and the castle all lighted up with flaring torches, 
and dead knights and ladies sitting in the halls at the wine- 
cup, and the devil himself flapping his wings on the ramparts. 
When the debates were political, two members with the gift 
©f song fired the blood with theii’ own poems about taxation 


ATJLD LIGHT IDYLLS. lOl 

and the depopulation of the Highlands, and by selling these 
songs from door to door they made their livelihood. 

;^oks and pamphlets were brought into the town by the 
flying stationers, as they were called, who visited the square 
periodically, carrying their wares on their backs, except at the 
Muckly, when they had their stall, and even sold books by auc- 
tion. The flying stationer best known to Thrums was San- 
dersy Riach, who was stricken from head to foot with the palsy, 
and could only speak with a quaver in consequence. Sandersy 
brought to the members of the club all the great books he 
could get second-hand, but his stock in trade was “ Thrummy 
Cap and Akenstaff,’^ the “Fishwives of Buckhaven,” the 
“ Devil upon Two Sticks,’^ “ Guild eroy,’^ “ Sir James the 
Rose,” the “Brownie of Badenoch,” the “ Ghaist of Firen- 
den,” and the like. It was from Sandersy that Tammas 
Haggart bought his copy of Shakespeare, whom Mr. Dishart 
could never abide. Tammas kept what he had done from his 
wife, but Chirsty saw a deterioration setting in, and told the 
minister of her suspicions. Mr. Dishart was newly placed at 
the time, and very vigorous, and the way he shook the truth 
out of Tammas was grand. The minister pulled Tammas the 
one way and Gavin pulled him the other; but Mr. Dishart was 
not the man to be beaten, and he landed Tammas in the Auld 
Licht kirk before the year was out. Chirsty buried Shake- 
speare in the yard. 


Books F ree! Boo ks Free! 

THIRTY 

25-CEHT NOTEIS 

Given to Each Subscriber! 

ALL NEW AND FRESH. 

To those sending 13.00 to this office we will send, post- 
paid, The New York Fireside Companion 
for One Year, and 30 Twenty-five Cent Nov- 
els selected from a list of over 200 books, which will 
be furnished on application. 

To those sending 12.00 we will send, postpaid. The New 
York Fireside Comi)anion for Eight Months, 
and 20 Twenty-five Cent Novels. 

To those sending 11.00 we will send, postpaid. The New 
York Fireside Companion for Four Months, 
and 10 Twenty-five Cent Novels. 

These books are printed from new type, on good paper, and 
are bound in handsome paper covers. 

You can make your own selection. 

Please order by numbers. 

IPrice of kooks alone (witlioiit paper) 85 cents 
per copy. • 

All remittances should be sent by Drafts, Checks, Post Office 
or Express Money Orders, or by Registered Letters. We will be 
responsible for any remittances sent in this w^ay. 

^iend us your own name and address, also 
those ol* your friends, and we w ill send to each 
address, FIS 11 11, Nample Copies of Flie I\ew York 
Fireside Companion an<l catalogues from wliick 
to make choice of hooks. 

Address GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS, 

P.O.Box 2781. 17 to 27 Vaiide water Street, New York, 

Or instruct your Newsdealer or Postmaster to forward your subscription to us. 


June 1, 1895. 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY, 


POCKET EDITION. 


AVXHOKS’ CAXALOCiVE. 


[When ordering by mail please order by numbers.'\ 


£. About. 

1467 A New Lease of Life — *25 

Mrs. Leith Adnins. 

1345 Aunt Hepsj^’s Foundling*25 

Author of “Addie’s Hus- 
band.” 

388 Addie’s Husband; or, 
Tiirongh Clouds to Sun- 
shine 96 

504 My Poor Wife *25 

1046 Jessie *25 

Max Adeler. 

1550 Random Shots *25 

1569 Elbow Room *25 

Author of ‘‘A Fatal Dower.” 

246 A Fatal Dower *25 

372 Phyllis’s Probation *25 

461 His Wedded Wife 25 

829 'I’he Actor’s Wai'd *25 

1373 The Story of an Error. . .*25 

Author of ‘‘A Golden Bar.” 

483 Betwixt My Love and Me.*25 

Author ot “A Great Mis- 
take.” 

244 A Great Mistake 25 

588 Cherry *25 

1040 Clarissa’s Ordeal 25 

11.37 Prince Charming *25 

1187 Suzanne *25 

Author ol ‘‘ A Woman’s 
I.ove-Story.” 

322 A Woman’s Love-Story.. *25 
677 Griselda *25 

Author of “For Mother’s 
Sake.” 

1900 Leonie; or, The Sweet 
Street Singer of New 
York *95 

Author of “He,” “It,” etc. 

1916 King Solomon’s Treas- 
ures ...’*‘95 


Hamilton Aide. 

383 Introduced to Society... 

Gustave Aimard. 

1341 The Trappers of Arkan- 
sas *25 

1396 The Adventurers ^ 

1398 Pirates of the Prairies. . . 25 

1400 Queen of the Savannah. *25 

1401 The Buccaneer Chief *^ 

1402 The Smuggler Hero *^ 

1404 Tlie Rebel Chief *25 

16.50 The Trail-Hunter *25 

1653 The Pearl of the Andes.. ^ 

1672 The Insurgent Chief *25 

1688 The Trapper's Daughter ^ 

1690 The Tiger-Slayer ^ 

1692 Border Rifles 25 

1700 The Flying Horseman. . .*25 

1701 The Freebooters *25 

1714 The White Scalper *25 

^1723 The Guide of the Desert. ^ 

1732 Last of the Ancas *25 

17.34 Missouri Outlaws 25 

1736 Prairie Flower *25 

1740 Indian Scout *25 

1741 Stronghand 25 

1742 Bee-Hunters *25 

1744 Stoneheart *^ 

i748 The Gold-Seekers ^ 

17.52 Indian Chief *^ 

1756 Red Track *25 

1761 The Treasure of Pearls.. 25 
1768 Red River Half-Breed. . .*25 

31 ary Albert. 

933 A Hidden Terror *26 

Grant Allen. 

712 For ]\Iaimie’s Sake *2S 

1221 “ The Tents of Shem ”...*25 

1783 The Great Taboo *^ 

1870 What’s Bred in the Bone*25 
1908 Dumaresq's Daughter... *25 
2022 Duchess of Powysland..*25 

NIrs. Alexander. 

5 The Admiral’s Ward. ..25 

17 The Wooing O’t 26 

62 The Executor 25 

189 Valerie’s Fate 96 


4 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


259 Maid. Wife, or Widow?.. 25 

236 Which Shall it Be? 25 

339 Mrs. Vereker’s Courier 

Maid *25 

490 A Second Life *25 

564 At Bay 25 

794 Beaton’s Bargain *25 

797 Look Before You Leap. .*25 

805 The I'Yeres *25 

806 Her Dearest Foe *25 

814 The Heritap:e of Langdale*25 

815 Ralph Wilton’s Weird... *25 

900 By Woman’s Wit *25 

997 Forging tiie Fetters, and 

The Australian Aunt. ...*25 

1054 Mona's Choice *:^ 

1057 A Life Interest 25 

1189 A t ’rooked Path *25 

1199 A False Scent 25 

1367 Heart Wins.... . *25 

1459 A Woman’s Heart 25 

1571 Blind Fate *25 

Mrs. Alderdice. 

1582 An Interesting Case 25 

Alison. 

194 “So Near, and Y'et So 

Far!” *25 

278 For Life and Love 25 

481 The House That Jack 
Built *25 


Hans Christian Andersen. 
1314 Andersen’s Fairy Tales.. 25 
\V. 1*. Andrews. 

1172 India and Her Neighbors*25 


F. Anstey. 

59 Vice Versa 25 

225 The Giant's Robe *^ 

503 The Tinted Venus. A 

Farcical Romance 25 

819 A Fallen Idol *25 

1616 The Black Poodle, and 

Other Tales *25 

G. VV. Appleton. 

1146 A Terrible Legacy *25 

Annie A riiiitt. 

759 In Shallow Waters *25 

T. S. Arthur. 

1337 Woman’s Trials *25 

1636 The Two Wives ^ 

1638 Married Life *25 

1640 Ways of Providence *25 

1641 HomeS(’bnes *25 

1644 Stories for Parents *25 

1649 Seed-Time and Harvest. *25 

1652 Words for the Wise *25 

1654 Stories for Young House- 
keepers *25 

1657 Lessons In Life *25 

1668 Off-Hand Sketches. *25 


Sir Samuel Baker. 

267 Ride and Hound in Cey- 
lon *^ 

533 Eight Years Wandering 

in Ceylon *26 

1502 Cast Up by the Sea *^ 

K. M. Ballautyne. 

89 The Red Eric 25 

95 The Fire Brigade *^ 

96 Erliug the Bold *^ 

772 Gascoyne, the Sandal- 

Wood Trader *25 

1514 Deep Down *^ 

Hon ore De Balzac. 

776 PereGoriot 25 

1128 Cousin Pons ^ 

1318 The Vendetta 25 


S. Baring-Gould. 


787 Court Royal *25 

878 Little Tu’penny *25 

1122 Eve *25 

1201 Mehalah : A Story of the 

Salt Marshes *25 

1697 Red Spider *26 

1711 The Pennycomequicks...*25 

1763 John Herring 

1779 Arminell *26 

1821 Urith *25 


Frank Barrett. 

986 The Great Hesper *25 

1138 A Recoiling Vengeance.. *25 

1245 Fettered for Life *25 

1461 Smuggler’s Secret *25 

1611 Between Life and Death.*25 
1750 Lieutenant Barnabas... .*25 
1828 Under a Strange Mask.. *25 
1940 Olga’s Crime *^ 


J. M. Barrie. 

1896 My Lady Nicotine *25 

1977 Better Dead *25 

2099 Auld Licht Idylls 25 

2100 A Window in Thrums. . . 25 

2101 When a Man's Single... 25 

Basil. 


344 “The Wearing of the 

Green ” *25 

547 A Coquette’s Conquest.. *25 
585 A Drawn Game *25 


G. M. Bayne. 

1618 Galaski *26 

Anne Beale. 

188 Idonea *‘>5 

199 The Fisher Village *26 

Alexander Beag. 

1605 Wrecks in the Sea of 
Life *11 


POCKET EDITION, 


5 


By the Writer of “Belle’s 
; Lietters.” 


9091 Vashti and Esther 25 


E. B. Benjaiiiiu. 


1706 Jim, the Parson *25 

1720 Our Roman Palace *25 

A. Beuriino. 

1624 Vic *25 

E. F. Benson. 

2?i.03 Dodo 25 

E. Berger. 

1646 Charles Auchester *25 

W. Bergsol. 

1445 Pillone *25 

E. Bertliel. 


1#89 The Sergeant’s Legacy.. *25 

Walter Besant. 

97 All in a Garden Fair 25 

137 Uncle Jack *25 

140 A Glorious Fortune *25 

146 Love Finds the Way.and 
Other Stories. By Besant 

and Rice *25 

230 Dorothy Forster *25 

324 In Luck at Last *25 

641 Uncle Jack *25 

651 “ Self or Bearer ” *25 

^2 Children of Gibeon *25 

904 The Holy Rose *25 

906 'I’he AVorld Went Very 

Well Then 25 

980 To Call Her Mine 25 

10.55 Katharine Regina *25 

1065 Herr Paulus: His Rise, 
His Greatness, and His 

Fall *25 

1143 The Inner House *25 

1151 For Faith and Freedom. .*25 
1240 The Bell of St. Paul’s. . . .*25 
1247 The Lament of Dives — 25 
1378 They Wei'e Married. By 
Walter Besant and Jas. 

Rice *25 

1413 Armorel of Lyonesse 25 

1462 Let Nothing You Dismay*25 
1530 When the Ship Comes 
Home. By Besant and 


Rice *25 

1665 The Demoniac *25 

1861 St. Katherine’s by the 

Tower . *25 

9018 The Revolt of Man *25 


M. Beth ain-E<I wards. 

973 Love and Mirage; or,The 
Waiting on an Island... *25 
679 The Flower of Doom,and 
Other Stories. *25 


594 Doctor Jacob *25 

1023 Next of Kin— Wanted... *25 
1407 The Parting of the Way8*25 

1500 Disarmed *25 

1543 For One and the World.. *25 
1627 A Romance of the Wire. *25 
1845 Forestalled ; or, The Life 
Quest *25 

Jennie Gwynne Bettany. 
1810 A Laggard in Love *25 


Bjorustjerne Bjorusoii. 

1385 Arne *25 

1388 The Happy Boy *25 

William Black. 

1 Yolande 25 

18 Shandon Bells 25 

21 Sunrise: A Story of These 

Times 25 

23 A Princess of Thule 25 

39 In Silk Attire 25 

44 Macleod of Dare 25 

49 That Beautiful Wretch.. *25 

50 The Strange Adventures 

of a Phaeton 25 

70 White Wings: A Yacht- 
ing Romance 25 

78 Madcap Violet 25 

81 A Daughter of Heth.. .. 25 

124 Three Feathers 25 

125 The Monarch of Mincing 

Lane 25 

126 Kilmeny 25 

138 Green Pastures and Pic- 
cadilly *25 

265 Judith Shakespeare: Her 
Love Affairs and Other 

Adventures *25 

472 The Wise Women of In- 
verness *25 

627 White Heather *25 

898 Romeo and J uliet: A Tale 
of Two Young Fools. . .*25 

962 Sabina Zembra, . *25 

1096 The Strange Adventures 

of a House-Boat *25 

11.32 In Far Lochaber *25 

1227 The Penance of John 

Logan *25 

1259 Nanciebel: A Tale of 

Stratford-on-Avon *25 

1268 Prince Fortunatus *25 

1389 Oliver Goldsmith *25 

1394 The Four Macnicols, and 

Other Tales *25 

1426 An Adventure in Thule.. *25 
1505 Lady Silverdale’s Sweet- 
heart *26 

1.506 Mr. Pisistratus Brown, 

M. P *25 

1725 Stand Fast, Craig-Roy- 

ston : *25 

1892 Donald Ross of Helmra..*96 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


R. Do Blnckinore* 

67 Lotna Doone 85 

427 Tlie Remarkable History 
of Sir Thomas Upmore, 

Bart., i\I. P *25 

615 Mary Anerley 25 

625 Erema; or, My Father’s 
Sin 25 

629 Cripps, the Carrier *25 

630 Cradock Nowell *25 

631 Ciiristowell *25 

632 • lara Vaughan *25 

633 The Maid of Sker *25 

636 Alice Lorraine *25 

926 Sminf'haven *25 

1267 Kit and Kitty *25 

Isa Blngden. 

705 The Woman I Loved, and 
the Woman Who Loved 
Me *25 

C. Blatlierwick. 

151 The Duoie Diamonds *25 

Edgar Janes Bliss. 

3102 The Peril of Oliver Sar- 
gent 25 

Frederick Boyle. 

856 The Good Hater *25 

Miss M. £. Braddon. 

35 Lady Audley’s Secret... 25 

56 Phantom Fortune 25 

74 Aurora Floyd 25 

110 Under the Red Flag *25 

153 The Golden Calf *25 

204 Vixen 25 

211 The Octoroon 25 

234 Barbara; or, Splendid 

Misery *25 

263 An Islimaelite *25 

815 The Mistletoe Bough. 
Christmas, 1884. Edited 
by Miss M. E. Braddon.*25 

434 Wyllard's Weird 25 

478 Diavola; or. Nobody’s 

Daughter 25 

480 Married in Haste. Edi- 
ted by Miss M. E. Brad- 
don 25 

487 Put to the Test. Edited by 

Miss M. E. Braddon *25 

488 Joshua Haggard’s 

Daus^liter *25 

489 Rupert Godwin *25 

495 Mount Royal .*25 

496 Only a Woman. Edited 

oy Miss M. E. Braddon. *25 

497 The Lady’s Mile *25 

498 Onl}' a Olod *25 

499 The Cloven Foot *25 

511 A Strange World *25 


515 Sir Jasper’s Tenant *25 

524 Strangers and Pilgrims. *25 

529 The Doctor’s Wife *25 

542 Fenton's Quest *25 

544 Cut by the County; or,* 
Grace Darnel *25 

548 A Fatal Marriage, and 

The Shadow in the Cor- 
ner *25 

549 Diniley Carleon ; or. The 

Brother’s Secret, and 
George Caulfield’s Jour- 
ney *25 

552 Hostages to Fortune. ..*25 

553 Birds of Prey *25 

554 Charlotte’s Inheritance. 

(Sequel to “ Birds of 

Prey ”) *25 

557 To the llitter End *25 

559 Taken at the Flood *25 

560 Asphodel *25 

561 Just as I am; or, A Liv- 

ing Lie 25 

567 Dead Men’s Shoes *25 

570 John Marchmorit’s Leg- 
acy *25 

618 The Mistletoe Bough. 
Christmas, 1885. Edited 
by Miss M. E. Braddon .*25 
840 One Thing Needful; or. 
The Penalty of Fate. ..*25 

881 Mohawks *25 

890 The Mistletoe Bough. 
Christmas, 1886. Edited 
V)y Miss M. E. Braddon. .*25 
943 Weavers and Weft: or, 

“ Love that Hath Us in 

His Net ”. *25 

947 Publicans and Sinners; 

or, Lucius Davoren *25 

1036 Like and Unlike *25 

1098 The Fatal Tlmee *25 

1211 The Day Will Come 25 

1411 Whose Was the Haud?..*^ 

1664 Dead Sea Fruit *^ 

1893 The World, Flesh and the 
Devil 25 

Annie Brncl.Hliaw. 

706 A Crimson Stain *25 

Clinvlotre I>f. Brnenie. Au- 
thor of “ Dora Thorne.” 

19 Her Mother's Sin 25 

51 Dora Thorne 25 

54 A Broken Wedding-Ring 25 

68 A Queen Amongst 

Women 25 

69 Madolin’s Lover 25 

73 Redeemed by Love; or, 

Love s Victory 25 

76 Wife in Name Only; or, 

A Broken Heart 36 

79 Wedded and Parted 3ft 


POCKET EDITION. 


7 


93 Lord Lynne’s Choice 25 

148 Thorns and Orange- 

Blossoms 25 

190 Romance of a Black Veil 25 
220 Which Loved Him Best? 25 
237 Repented at Leisure 25 

249 “ Prince Charlie’s Daugh- 

ter;” or. The Cost of 
Her Love 25 

250 Sunshine and Roses; or, 

Diana's Discipline 25 

254 The Wife’s Secret, and 

Fair but False 25 

283 The Sin of a Lifetime : 
or, Vivien's Atonement 25 

291 Love’s Warfare 25 

292 A Golden Heart 25 

^6 A Rose in Thorns 25 

299 The Fatal Lilies, and A 

Bride from the Sea 25 

300 A Gilded Sin, and A 

Bridge of Love 25 

803 Ingledew House, and 

More Biiter than Death 25 

804 In Cupid’s Net 25 

305 A Dead Heart, and Lady 

Gwendoline’s Dream... 25 

306 A Golden Dawn, and 

Love for a Day 25 

307 Tw’o Kisses, and Like no 

Other Love. 25 

308 Beyond Pardon 25 

322 A Woman’s Love-Story. 25 

323 A Willful Maid 25 

411 A Bitter Atonement 25 

433 My Sister Kate 25 

459 A Woman’s Temptation. 25 

460 Under a Shadow 25 

465 The Earl’s Atonement. .. 25 

466 Between Two Loves 25 

467 A Struggle for a Ring. . . 25 

469 Lady Darner’s Secret — 25 

470 Evelyn’s Folly 25 

471 Thrown on the World... 25 
476 Between Two Sins; or, 

Married in Haste 25 

516 Put Asunder; or. Lady 
Castlemaine’s Divorce. 25 

876 Her Martyrdom 25 

626 A I'Air Mystery: or, The 

Perils of Beauty 25 

741 The Heiress of Hilldrop; 
or. The Romance of a 

Young Girl 25 

745 For Another’s Sin; or, A 

Struggle for Love 25 

792 Set in Diamonds 25 

821 The World Between 

Them 25 

822 A Passion Flower 25 

853 A True Matrdalen 25 

854 A Woman’s Error 25 

922 Marjorie ^ 

923 At War With Herself. ... 25 


924 ’Twixt Smile and Tear.. . 2i 

927 Sweet Cymbeline ^ 

928 The False Vow; or, 

Hilda; or. Lady Hut- 
ton’s Ward 25 

928 Lady Hutton’s Ward; or, 
Hilda; or, The False 

Vow 28 

928 Hilda; or. The False 
Vow; or. Lady Hutton’s 
Ward 28 


929 The Belle of Lynn; or. 
The Miller’s Daughter.. 
931 Lady Diana’s Pride 

948 'J'he Shadow of a Sin 

949 Claribel’s Love Story : or. 

Love’s Hidden Depths. . 

9.52 A Woman s War 

953 Hilary’s Folly; cr. Her 

Marriage Vow 

955 From Gloom to Sunlight; 

or. From Out the Gloom 
958 A Haunted Life; or. Her 

Terrible Sin 

969 The Mystery of Colde 
Fell; or, Not Proven... 
973 The Squire’s Darling — 
975 A Dark Man iage Morn.. 

978 Her Second Love 

982 The Duke’s Secret 

985 On Her Wedding Morn, 
and The Mystery of the 

Holly-Tree 

988 The Shattered Idol, and 

Lett.y Leigh 

990 The Earl’s Error, and 

Arnold’s Promise 

995 An Unnatural Bondage, 
and That Beautiful 

I.ady 

1006 His Wife’s Judgment. . . . 
1008 A Thorn in Her Heart.. 

1010 Golden Gates 

1012 A Nameless Sin 

1014 A Mad Love 

1031 Irene’s Vow 

1052 Signa’s Sweetheart 

1091 A Modern Cinderella 

11.34 Lord Elesmere's Wife.. .. 
1155 Lured Away; or. The 
Story of a Wedding- 
Ring, and The Heiress 

of Arne 

1179 Beauty’s Marriage.. ... .. 

1185 A Fiery Ordeal 

1195 Dumaresq’s Temptation. 

1285 Jenny 

1291 The Star of Love 

i:328 Lord Lisle s Daughter. . . 
1415 Weaker than a Woman. 
1628 Love Works Wonders. . . 

2010 Her Only Sin 

2011 A Fatal Wedding 

2013 A Bright Wedding-Day.. 




8 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY, 


2013 One Ag:ainst Many 25 

2014 One False Step 25 

2015 Two Fair Women 25 

2008 Lady Latimer’s Escape, 

and Other Stories 25 

Fredvika Bremer* 

187 The Midnight Sun *25 

John Francis Brewer, 
1011 The Curse upon Mitre 
Square *25 

CliFi-rlotte Bronte. 

15 Jane Eyre 25 

57 Shirley 25 

944 The Professor *25 


John ]SIoiindelle*Burton. 


913 The Silent Shore; or, 
The Mystery of St 
James’ Park *96 

Beatrice M* Butt. 


1354 Delicia *26 

2019 Miss Molly *25 

2044 Eugenie *25 


2056 Geraldine Hawthorne. . .*25 


Author of ‘*By Crooked 
Paths.” 

430 A Bitter Reckoning *96 

E. Easseter Bynner, 


1456 Nimport ; *25 

1400 Tritons *96 


Khoda Broughton. 

86 Belinda 25 

101 Second Thoughts 25 

227 Nancy 25 

645 Mrs. Smith of Longmains*25 

758 “Good-bye, Sweet- 
heart!” *25 

765 Not Wisely, But Too Well 25 
707 Joan *25 

768 Red as a Rose is She *25 

769 Cometh Up as a Flower. *25 

862 Betty’s Visions *25 

894 Doctor Cupid *25 

1609 Alas! *25 

Louise de Briineval. 

1686 Sceur Louise *25 

Robert Buchanan. 

145 " Storm • Beaten God 

and The Man *25 

154 Annan Water *25 

181 The New Abelard *25 

268 The Martyrdom of Mad- 
eline *25 

398 Matt : A Tale of a Cara- 
van *25 

468 The Shadow of the Sword=^25 

646 The Master of the Mine. *25 
892 That Winter Night; or. 

I.ove's Victory *25 

1074 Stormy Waters *25 

1104 The Heir of Linne *25 

1350 Love Me Forever 25 

1455 The Moment, After *25 


John Biinynn. 

1498 The Pilgrim’s Progress.. 25 

Captain Fred Burnaby. 

830 ” Our Radicals ” *25 

375 A Ride to Kliiva 25 

384 On Horseback Through 
Asia Minor *25 


liord Byron. 

719 Childe Harold’s Pilgrim- 
age *25 

E. Fairfax Byrrne. 

521 Entangled *25 

538 A Fair Country Maid... .*25 

Mrs. 11. M. Cadell. 

2039 Ida Craven *25 

Mrs. Caddy. 

127 Adrian Bright *95 

Hall Caine. 

445 The Shadow of a Crime. 25 
520 She’s All the World to 

Me 25 

1234 The Deemster 25 

12.55 The Bondman. .. . ... 25 

2079 A Son![of Hagar 25 

2096 The Mahdi 96 

Mona Call'd. 

1699 The Wing of Azrael *25 

Ada Cambridge. 

1.583 A Marked Man *25 

1967 My Guardian *25 

2139 The Three Miss Kings. . . 25 

Mrs. H. l.ovett Cameron. 

595 A North Country Maid. .*25 

796 In a Grass Country *26 

891 Vera Nevill; or. Poor 

Wisdom’s Chance *25 

912 Pure Gold *25 

963 Worth Winning *25 

1025 Daisy’s Dilemtna *25 

1028 A Devout Lover; or, A 

Wasted Love 25 

1070 A Life's Mistake *25 

1204 The Lodge by the Sea... *25 

1205 A Lost Wife *25 

1236 Her Father’s Daughter .*96 


POCKET EDITION. 


9 


1261 Wild Georgre’s Daughter *25 

1290 The Cost of a Lie *25 

1292 Bosky Dell *25 

1549 The Cruise of the Black 

Prince *25 

1782 A Dead Past *25 

1819 Neck or Nothing: *25 

1991 Proved Unworthy *25 

Lndy Colin Campbell. 

1325 Darell Blake *25 

llosa Noiicliette Carey. 

215 Not Like Other Girls... 25 
396 Robert Ord’s Atonement 25 
651 Barbara Heathcote’s 

Trial 25 

608 For Lilias 25 

930 Uncle Max 25 

932 Queenie's Whim 25 

934 Wooed and Married 25 

936 Nellie s Memories 25 

961 Wee Wifie 25 

1033 Esther: A Story for Girls 25 

1064 Only the Governess 25 

1135 Aunt Diana 25 

1194 The Search for Basil 

Lyndhnrst 25 

1208 Merle's Crusade *25 

1545 Lover or Friend? 25 

1879 Mary St. John 25 

1965 Averil 25 

1966 Our Bessie 25 

1968 Heriot’s Choice 25 

William Carleton. 

1493 Willy Reilly *25 

1552 Shane Fadh's Wedding.. *25 

1553 LarryMcFarland’s Wake*25 

1554 The Party Fight and 

Funeral *25 

1556 The Midnight Mass *25 

1557 Phil Purcel *25 

1558 An Irish Oath *25 

1560 Going to Maynooth *25 

1561 Phelim O’Toole’s Court- 

ship 

1562 Dominick, the Poor 

Scholar *25 

1564 Neal Malone *25 

Alice ComynsCavr. 

671 Paul Crew’s Story *25 

Lewis Carroll. 

462 Alice’s Adventures in 
Wonderland. Ilhistrated 

by John Tenniel *25 

989 Through the Looking- 
Glass. and What Alice 
Found There. Illustra- 
ted by John Tenniel. . . *25 
Cervantes. 

Don Quixote 26 


L. W. Cliampiiey. 

1468 Bourbon Lilies *25 

Erckiiiann-CIiati'ian. 

329 The Polish Jew. ('I'rans- 
lated from the French 
by Caroline A. Merighi.)*25 

Victor Clierbiiliez. 

1516 Samuel Brohl & Co 

2001 Joseph Noirel’s Re- 


venge *25 

2020 Count Kostia *25 

2021 Prosper *25 


Mrs. C. M. CInrIte. 

1801 More True than Truthful*25 

W. M. Clemens. 

1544 Famous Funny Fellows. *25 

3rrs. W. K. ClilTord. 

2104 Love Letters of a World- 
ly Woman 25 

J. Mnclaren Cobban. 

485 Tinted Vapours *25 

1279 Master of His Fate. . . . *25 
1511 A Reverend Gentleman. *25 
1953 The Horned Cat *25 

John Coleman. 

504 Curly: An Actor’s Story*25 

C. R. Coleridge. 

403 An English Squire *26 

1689 A Near Relation *25 

llentrice Collensie. 

1352 A Double Marriage *25 

31abel Collins. 

749 Lord Vanecourt’s Daugh- 
ter 26 

828 The Prettiest Woman in 

Warsaw *25 

1463 Ida: An Adventure in 

Morocco *26 

Wilkie Collins. 

52 The New Magdalen 25 

102 The Moonstone £5 

16? Heart and Science *25 

168 No Thoroughfare. By 

Dickens and Collins *25 

175 Love's Random Shot, 

and Other Stories 25 

233 “I Say No;” or. The 
Love-Letter Answered. 25 

508 The Girl at the Gate 25 

591 The Queen of Hearts *25 

613 The Ghost’s Touch, and 
Percy and the Prophet. *25 
623 My Lady’s Money 25 


10 


THE SEASIDE LIBRAHY, 


701 Tlie Woman in White. . . 25 

702 Man and Wife 25 

764 Tlie Evil Genius *25 

896 Tlie Guilty River *25 

946 The Dead Secret *25 

977 'I'lie Haunted Hotel 25 

1029 Armadale 25 

1095 The Leg:acy of Cain. . . .-.*25 

1119 No Name 25 

1269 Blind liOve *25 

1347 A Rogue’s Life *25 

1608 Tales of Two Idle Ap- 
pientices. By Charles 
Dickens and Wilkie Col- 
lins *25 

1895 Miss or Mrs.?. *25 

M. J. Colqiilioiin. 

624 Primus in ludis *25 

1469 Every Inch a Soldier ....*25 

Lucy Randall Comfovt. 

9072 For Marjorie’s Sake 25 

Hugh Conway. 

240 Called Back 25 

351 The Daughter of the 
Stars, and Other Tales.. *25 

301 Dark Days 25 

302 The Blatchford Bequest. *25 

341 A Dead Man’s Face *25 

502 Carriston’s Gift *25 

525 Paul Vargas, and Other 

Stories *25 

543 A Family Affair *25 

601 Slings and Arrows, and 

Other Stories *25 

711 A Cardinal Sin *25 

804 Living or Dead *25 

830 Bound by a Spell *25 

ia53 All In One *25 

1684 Story of a Sculptor *25 

1722 Somebody’s Story *25 

J. Feniniore Cooper. 

60 The Last of the Mohi- 
cans 25 

63 The Spy 25 

309 The Pathfinder 25 

310 The Prairie ^ 

318 The Pioneers; or, The 

Sources of the Susque- 
hanna 25 

349 The Two Admirals 25 

359 The Water-Witch *25 

361 The Red Rover *25 

373 Wing and Wing . 25 

#78 Homeward Bound; or, 

The Chase 25 

379 Home as Found. (Sequel 
to “Homeward Bound’’)*25 
860 ’Wyandotte; or, The Hut- 
ted Knoll 25 


385 The Headsman : or. The 
Abbaye des Vignerons*iW 

394 The Bravo *36 

397 Lionel Lincoln; or, The 

Leaguer of Boston *25 

400 The Wept of Wish-Ton- 
Wish 25 

413 Afloat and Ashore 25 

414 Miles Wallingford. (Se- 

quel to “ Afloat and 

Ol*©^ 

415 The’VVa 5 'sof the Hour. .*25 

416 Jack Tier; or. The Flor- 

ida Reef 25 

419 TheChainbearer; or. The 

Littlepage Manuscripts*25 

420 Satanstoe; or. The Little- 

page Manuscripts *25 

421 The Red.skins; or. In- 

dian and Injin. Being 
the conclusion of the 
Littlepage Manuscripts*25 

422 Precaution *25 

423 The Sea Lions; or. The 

Lost Sealers *25 

424 IMercedes of Castile; or, 

The Voyage to CathaJ^.*25 

425 The Oak-Openings; or. 

The Bee-Hunter *25 

431 The Jlonikins *25 

1062 The Deerslayer; or, The*25 

First War-Path 

1170 The Pilot 25 

Marie Corelli. 

1068 Vendetta! or. The Story 

of One Forgotten 25 

1131 Thelma 25 

1329 My Wonderful Wife!.... 25 

1663 Wormwood 25 

2089 The Hired Baby 25 

2132 Ardath 25 

2136 A Romance of Two 
Worlds 35 

Alice Corkrau. 

2051 Bessie Lang *36 

Kiiialiaii Cornwallis. 

1601 Adrift AVith a Vengeance*26 

Madame Cottiu. 

1366 Elizabeth *25 

John Coventry. 

2057 After His Kind *25 

Georgiana M. Craik. 

4.50 Godfrey H el stone *25 

606 Mrs. Hollyer *^ 

1681 A Daughter of the People ^ 

Augustus Craven. 

1917 Fleurange *25 


POCKET EDITION. 


11 


Oswald Crawfiird. 

1739 Sylvia Arden *25 

K. K. Criswell. 

1584 Grandfather Lickshingle*25 

S. R. Crockett. 

2095 The Stickit Minister 25 

B. M- Croker. 

207 Pretty Miss Neville 25 

260 Proper Pride 25 

412 Some One Else 25 

1124 Diana Barrington *26 

1607 Two Masters *25 

May Cromineliu. 

4.52 In the West Countrie *25 

619 Joy: or, The Light of 

Cold Home Ford *25 

647 Goblin Gold *25 

1327 Midge *:'5 

1399 Violet Vyvian, M.F.H *25 

1902 The Freaks of Lady For- 
tune *25 

Stuart C. Cumberland. 

641 The Rabbi’s Spell *25 

Maria S. Cummins. 

1984 The Lamplighter *25 

Mrs. Dale. 

1806 Fair and False *25 

1808 Behind the Silver Veil.. .*25 

R. II. Dana, Jr. 

311 Two Years Before the 
Mast *25 

Frank Danby. 

1379 The Copper Crash *25 

Joyce Darrell. 

163 Winifred Pow'er *25 

Alplianse Daudet. 

634 Jack *25 

574 The Nabob: A Story of 
Parisian Life and Man- 
ners *25 

1368 Lise Tavernier *25 

1629 Tartariuof Tarascon *25 

1666 Sidonie *25 

1670 The Little Good-for-Noth- 

ing 25 

S081 Sappho 25 

C. Debaiis. 

1626 A Sheep in Wolf’s Cloth- 
ing *25 

Daniel Defoe. 

1812 Eobinson Crusoe *26 


R. D’Eiincry. 

242 The Two Orphans 26 

Count De Cobineau. 

1606 Typhaines Abbey *25 

Hugh De Normand. 

1454 The Gypsy Queen *25 

Thomas De Quiucey. 

1059 Confessions of an En- 
glish Opium-Eater 25 

1380 The Spanish Nun *25 

Earl of Desart. 

1301 The Little Chatelaine *25 

1817 Lord and Lady Piccadilly*25 
1853 Herne Lodge *^ 

Elsa D’Esterre-Keeling. 

382 Three Sisters 25 

Carl Detlef. 

1086 Nora *25 

1418 Irene *25 

Charles Dickens. 

10 The 01,d Curiosity Shop. 25 

22 David Copperfield 25 

24 Pickwick Papers 25 

37 Nicholas Nickleby 25 

41 Oliver Twist 25 

77 A Tale of Two Cities 25 


84 Hard Times 

... 25 

91 Barnabv Rudge 


94 Little Dorrit 

...25 

106 Bleak House 

... 25 

107 Dombeyand Son 

... 25 

108 T li e Cricket on 

the 

Hearth, and Doctor Mar- 

igold 

...*25 

131 Our Mutual Friend.. 

... 25 

132 Master Hum phrey’s 

Clock 

....*25 

152 The Uncommercial Trav- 

eler 

.... 25 

168 No Thoroughfare. 

By 

Dickens and Collins. 

...*25 

169 The Haunted Man 

...*25 

437 Life and Adventures 

of 

Martin Chuzzlewit.. 

...*25 


439 Great Expectations *25 

440 Mrs. Lin-ipei ’s Lodgings*25 

447 American Notes *25 

448 Pictures Fi om Ifal}\and 

The ftludfog Papers. &c*25 
454 The Mystery of Edwin 

Drood *26 

456 Sketches by Boz. Illus- 
trative of Every-day 
Life and Every-day 

People *26 

676 A Child’s History of Eng- 
land 25 

731 The Boy at Mugby *21 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


1 « 


1520 Sketches of Young Cou- 
ples. . *25 

1529 The Haunted House, etc. *25 
1533 A Christjuas Carol, etc. .*25 
1541 Somebody’s Luggage ... *25 
1608 Tales of Two Idle "Ap- 
prentices. By Dickens 
and Collins *25 

Rt. Hon. Beiijaiiiiii niHvn> 
eliy Earl of Beacoiisfield. 

798 Vivian Grey *25 


Author of ‘*Dr. Edith Rom- 
ney.” 

612 My Wife’s Niece *25 

Sarah Doiiduey* 

338 The Family Difficulty. ..*25 
679 Where Two Ways Meet. *25 

Richard Dowling. 

1829 Oracle Gold *25 

18^ A Baffiing Quest *25 

Edmund Downey. 

1746 A House of Tears *25 

1793 In One Town *25 

A. Conan Doyle. 

1305 The Firm of Gii’dlestone 25 
1894 The White Company. ... 25 

1980 A Study in Scarlet 25 

2077 The Captain of the “Pole- 

” 25 

2092 Beyond the City 25 

2093 A Scandal in Bohemia.. 25 

2094 The Sign of the Four. . . 25 

2103 The Mystery of Cloomber 25 
2109 Micah Clark 26 

Catherine Drew. 

2055 The Lutaniste of St. 
Jacobi’s *25 

Edith Stewart Drewry. 

1846 Baptized With a Curse.. *25 
Gustave Droz. 

2002 Babolain *25 

9047 Around a Spring *25 

Henry Driiinmond. 

1813 The Greatest Thing in 
the World *25 

F. Du Boisgobey. 

82 Sealed Lips 25 

104 The Coral Pin *25 

964 Pi6douche, a French De- 

tectiv^i *25 

398 Babiole, the Pretty Mil- 
liner *25 


453 The Lottery Ticket *25 

475 The Prima Donna’s Hus- 
band *25 


522 Zig-Zag, the Clown ; or. 

The Steel Gauntlets *25 

523 The Consequences of a 

Duel. A Parisian Ro- 
mance *25 

648 The Angel of the Bells.. *25 

697 The Pretty Jailer *;^ 

699 The Sculptor's Daugh- 
ter *25 

782 The Closed Door *25 

851 The Cry of Blood *25 

918 The Red Band ..*25 

942 Cash on Delivery *25 

1076 The Mystery of an Omni- 
bus *25 

1080 Bertha’s Secret *^ 

1082 The Severed Hand *25 

1085 The Matapan Affair. ...*25 

1088 The Old Age of Mon- 
sieur Lecoq *25 

1730 The Blue Veil *25 

1762 The Detective’s Eye *25 

1765 The Red Lottery Ticket.*^ 
1777 A Fight for a Fortune. . .*25 

“The Duchess.” 

2 Molly Bawn 25 

6 Portia ^ 

14 Airy Fairy Lilian ^ 

16 Phyllis ^ 

25 Mrs. Geoffrey ^ 

29 Bea\ity’s Daughters ^ 

30 Faith and Unfaith ^ 

118 Loys, Lord Berresford, 

and Eric Dering *25 

119 Monica, and A Rose Dis- 

till’d 25 

123 Sweet is True Love ^ 

129 Rossmoyne ^ 

134 The Witching Hour, and 

Other Stories *25 

136 “ That Last Rehearsal,” 

and Other Stories *25 

166 Moonshine and Marguer- 



171 Fortune’s Wheel, and 

Other Stories 25 

284 Doris ^ 

312 A Week’s Amusement; 

or, A Week in Killarney*25 
342 The Baby, and One New 

Year's Eve *25 

390 Mildred Trevanion ^ 

404 In Durance Vile, and 

Other Stories *25 

486 Dick’s Sweetheart 25 

494 A Maiden All Forlorn, 

and Barbara *25 

517 A Passive Crime, and 

Other Stories *25 

541 ” As It Fell Upon a Day” 95 


POCKET EDITIOIST. 


13 


733 Lady Branksmere 25 

771 A Mental Strufr^le *~5 

785 The Haunted Chamber .*25 

862 U^ly Barrington 25 

875 Lady Valworth’s Dia- 
monds 25 

1009 In an Evil Hour, and 

Otlier Stories *25 

1016 A Modern Circe 25 

1035 The Duchess 25 

1047 Marvel 25 

1 103 The Honorable Mrs. 

Vereker *25 

1123 Under-Currents 25 

1197 “Jerry.” — “That Night 
in June.” — A Wrong 
Turning. — Irish Love 

and Marriage 25 

1209 A Troublesome Girl *25' 

1249 A Life’s Remorse 25 

1333 A Born Coquette 25 

1363 “April’s Lady” 25 

1453 Her Last Throw *25 

1^2 A Little Irish Girl 25 

1891 A Little Rebel . 25 

Alexander Dumas, 

55 The Three Guardsmen . . 25 

75 Twenty Years After 25 

262 The Count of Moute- 

Cristo. Part 1 25 

262 The Count of Monte- 

Cristo. Part II 25 

717 Beau Tancrede ; or. The 
Marriage Verdict. . .... .*25 

1053 Masaniello; or, The Fish- 
erman of Naples 25 

1840 The Son of Monte-Cristo 25 
1642 Monte-Cristo and His 
Wife. A Sequel to the 
“Count of Monte- 

Cristo.” 25 

1645 The Countess of Monte- 

Cristo 25 

1676 Camille 25 

2064 The Vicomte de Brage- 

lonne 25 

2065 Ten Years Later 25 

2066 Louise de la Valliere 25 

2067 The Man in the Iron 

IMask 25 

2075 The Twin Lieutenants. . . 25 

2076 The Page of the Duke of 

Savoy 25 

2110 The Two Dianas 25 

2111 The Black Tulip. 2.5 

2112 Olympe de Clevis 25 

2113 The Chevalier d’Harmen- 

tal; or. The Conspira- 
tors 2.) 

2114 The Regent’s Daughter. 25 

1115 Marguerite de Valois... 25 

1116 La Dame de Monsoreau ; 

or, CWcot the Jester. . . 25 


2117 The Forty-Five Guards* 


men 25 

2118 Joseph Balsamo 25 


2119 Memoirs of a Physician 25 

2120 The Queen's Necklace.. 25 

2121 Ange Pitou; or. Taking 

the Bastile ; or, Six 
Years Later 25 

2122 The Countess de Charny 25 

2123 Andr^e de Taverney 25 

2124 The Chevalier de Maison 

Rouge 25 

2125 The First Republic; or, 

The Whites and the 
Blues 26 

2126 The Company of Jehu . . 25 

2127 The she-Wolves of Ma- 

checoul; or, The Last 
Vend6e 25 

2128 The Corsican Brothers. . 25 

21.34 Edmond Dantes 25 

2138 The Son of Porthos 25 

Sava Jeannette Duncan. 

1852 An American Girl in Lon- 
don *25 

2137 A Social Departure 25 

George Kbers, 

474 Serapis. An Historical 

Novel 25 

983 Uarda 25 

10.56 The Bride of the Nile 25 

1094 Homo Sum 26 

1097 The Burgomaster’s Wife*25 
1101 An Egyptian Princess... 25 

1106 The Emperor 25 

1112 Only a Word 25 

1114 The Sisters *25 

1198 Gred of Nuremberg. A 
Romance of the Fif- 
teenth Century 25 

1266 Joshua: A Biblical Pict- 
ure 25 

Maria Edgeworth. 

708 Ormond *25 

788 The Absentee. An Irish 

Story *25 

1 948 Poptdar Tales *25 

Amelia D. Edwards- 

99 Barbara’s History 25 

354 Hand and Glove *25 

1364 My Brother’s Wife *25 

1901 Miss Carew *25 

Mrs. Annie Edwards, 

644 A Girton Girl *25 

834 A Ballroom Repentance. 25 

8.35 Vivian the Beauty *25 

836 A Point of Honor *25 

a37 A Vagabond Heroine.. ..*25 
838 Ought We to Visit Her?..*25 


14 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY, 


839 Leah: A Woman of 
Fasiiion *25 

841 Jet: Her Face or Her 

fortune? *25 

842 A Blue-Stocking *25 

843 Archie liOvell *25 

844 Susan Fielding *25 

845 Philip Eaniscliffe ; or. 

The florals of May raii *25 

846 Steven Lawrence *25 

850 A Playwright's Daughter*25 

H. Sutliei’lnnd Kdwavds. 

917 The Case of Reuben Ma- 
lachi *25 

Mrs. C. J. Eiloai t. 

114 Some of Our Girls *25 

George Eliot. 

8 The Mill on the Floss.. . . 25 

31 Middlemarch 25 

34 Daniel Deronda 25 

36 Adam Bede 25 

42 Romola ... 25 

693 Felix Holt, the Radical.. *25 
707 Silas IM a r n e r : The 

Weaver of Raveloe 25 

728 Janet’s Repentance *25 

762 Impressions of Theo- 
phrastus Such *25 

1441 Amos Barton *25 

1501 The Spanish Gypsy, and 

Other Poems 25 

1504 Brother Jacob *25 

Frances Elliot. 

381 The Red Cardinal *25 

liouis Enault. 

9058 Christine *25 

Mrs. T. Erskine. 

2043 Wyncote *25 

Eva Evergreen. 

1358 Agatha *25 

Hugh Ewing. 

9032 A Castle in the Air *25 

Juliana Horatia Ewing. 
752 Jackanapes, and Other 

Stories *25 

1880 A Flat Iron for a Farth- 
ing *25 

Kate Eyre, 

1804 A Step in the Dark *25 

Olive P. Fairchild. 

1800 A Choice of Chance *25 

1802 A Struggle for Love *^ 

II. Farley. 

10125 Christmas Stories.... ..*96 


B, li. Farjeon. 

179 Little Make-Believe *25 

573 L(we s Harvest *25 

607 Self -Doomed *25 

616 The Sacred Nugget *25 

657 Christmas Angel *25 

907 The Bright Star of Life. *25 

909 The Nine of Hearts *25 

1383 The Mystery of M. Felix. *25 

1.518 Gautraii *25 

17.35 A Very Young Couple. ..*25 

1790 A Secret Inheritance *25 

1791 Basil and Annette *25 

1812 Merry. Merry Boys *25 

1816 'I'he Peril of Richard 

Pardon *25 

1875 A Blood White Rose *25 

l-^Sl Grif *25 

1889 The Duchess of Ros- 

mary Lane *25 

1890 Toilers of Babylon *25 

1947 Ties, Human and Divine*25 
1962 For the Defence *25 

1988 Doctor Glennie’s Daugh- 
ter *25 

1989 Aunt Parker *25 

Hon.Mrs.Featherstonliaugh 

1343 Dream Faces *25 

Heinrich Felbermann. 

355 The Princess Dagomar 
of Poland *25 

G. Manville Fenn, 

193 The Rosery Folk *25 

558 Poverty Corner *25 

587 The Parson o’ Dumford.*^ 

609 The Dark House *25 

1169 Commodore Junk *25 

1276 The Mynns’ Mystery... *^ 

1293 In Jeopardy *^ 

1302 The Master of the Cere-' 

monies *25 

1313 Eve at the Wheel *25 

1344 One Maid's Mischief *25 

1387 Eli’s Children *25 

1680 This Man’s Wife *25 

1694 The Bag of Diamonds.. .*25 

1743 The Haute Noblesse *25 

1749 Story of Anthony Grace. *25 

1788 Black Blood 25 

1799 Lady Maude’s Mania *25 

1815 A Double Knot *25 

1824 A Mint of Money *26 

1936 A Golden Dream *25 

2016 The Golden Magnet *^ 

Octave Feiiillet. 

66 The Romance of a Poor 

Young Man 26 

386 Led Astray; or. “La 

Petite Comtesse ’’ *96 

1427 A Marriage in High Life*^ 


POCKET EDITION. 


15 


2023 Divorce; or, The Trials 
and 'I'emptations of a 
Lovely Woman *25 

Gertrude Forde. 

1072 Only a Coral Girl *25 

1849 In the Old Palazzo *25 

K. E. Forrest, 

879 The Touchstone of Peril. *25 
1858 Eight Days *^ 

Ulrs. Forrester. 

80 June 25 

280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale 

of Society 25 

484 Although He Was a 
Lord, and Other Tales. *25 
715 I Have Lived and Loved*25 

721 Dolores *25 

724 l\Iy Lord and My Lady. ..*25 

726 My Hero *25 

727 Fair Women 25 

729 Mignon *25 

732 From Olympus to Hades*25 

734 Viva *25 

736 Rov and Viola *25 

740 Rhbna *25 

744 Diana Carew; or, For a 

Woman’s Sake *25 

883 Once Again *25 

1637 A Young Man’s Fancy. .*25 

Jessie Fotliergill, 

314 Peril *25 

572 Healey *25 

935 Borderland *25 

1099 The Lasses of Lever- 

house *25 

1275 A March in the Ranks. . .*25 

1377 'I’he First Violin 25 

1843 Kith and Kin *25 

1978 From Moor Isles *25 

1999 One of Three *25 

Francesca. 

53 The Story of Ida *25 

R. £. Fraiicillon, 

185 A Great Heiress : A Fort- 
une in Seven Checks... *25 
319 Face to Face : A Fact in 


Seven Fables *25 

360 Ropes of Sand *25 

656 The Golden Flood. By 
R. E. Francillon and 

Wm. Senior *25 

911 Golden Bells *25 

1566 A Real Queen *25 

1825 King or Knave? *25 

3003 Under Slieve-Ban *25 

3007 The New Duchess *25 

A. Kraiiklyn. 

1470 Amelipe de Bourg *25 


Mrs. Alexander Fraser, 

1351 She Came Between *26 

1H26 The Match of the Season*25 
1928 A Fashionable Marriage*25 

Charlotte French. 

387 The Secret of the Clitfs..*25 

L. Virginia French. 

1633 My Roses *26 

J. A Fronde. 

1180 The Two Chiefs of Dun- 
boy; or. An Irish Ro- 
mance of the Last Cent- 
ury *25 

liady Georgiana Fullerton. 

1286 Ellen Middleton *25 

Emile Gaboriau, 

7 File No. 113 25 

12 Other People’s Money... 25 
20 Within an Inch of His 

Life 25 

26 Monsieur Lecoq 26 

33 The Clique of Gold 25 

38 The Widow Lerouge. ... 25 
43 The Mystery of Orcival. 25 
144 Promises of Marriage... 25 

979 The Count’s Secret 25 

1002 Marriage at a Venture. .*25 
1015 A Thousand Francs Re- 
ward *25 

1045 The 13th Hussars 25 

1078 The Slaves of Paris 25 

1083 The Little Old Man of 

the Batignolles *25 

1167 Captain Contanceau *25 

Edward Garrett. 

352 At Any Cost *25 

Mrs. Gaskell. 

938 Cranford *26 

Thcophile Gautier. 

1923 Avatar *26 

Henry George. 

1946 The Condition of Labor. *26 

Charles Gibbon. 

64 A Maiden Fair *26 

317 By Mead and Stream. . . .*25 
1277 Was Ever Woman in this 

Humor Wooed? *25 

1434 The Golden Shaft *25 

1795 The Dead Heart *^ 

1874 Blood Money *26 

1886 Beyond Compare *^ 

1913 Amoret *23 

1921 What Would You Do, 
Love? 


10 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


D. Cecil Gibbs. 

807 If Love Be Love *25 

Tlieo. Gift. 

1300 Lil Lorimer *25 

1435 Dishonored *25 

1844 Pretty Miss Bellew *25 

1994 Victims *25 

2004 Maid Ellice *25 

2027 A Matter-of-fact Girl *25 

Gilbert niid Sullivan. 

692 The Mikado, and Other 
Comic Operas .*25 

K. Murray Gilcbrist. 

1703 Passion the Plaything. ..*25 

Wennna Gilman. 

1794 Oni *25 

Ida Linn Girard. 

1860 A Dangerous Game *25 

(4oethe. 

1043 Faust • 25 

Howard J. Goldsiiiid. 

1883 Riven Asunder *25 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

801 She Stoops to Conquer, 
and The Good-Natured 

Man 25 

1816 The Vicar of Wakefield.. 25 

Edward Goodman. 

1081 Too Curious *25 

Mrs, Gore. 

1449 The Dean’s Daughter.. . .*25 

llarbara Graham. 

632 Arden Court *25 

Sarah Grand. 

9068 Singularly Deluded 25 

James Grant. 

566 The Royal Higlilanders; 
or. The Black Watch in 

Egypt *25 

781 I'he Secret Dispatch *25 

1935 Dick Rodney *i^ 

i960 The Adventures of Rob 
Roy *25 

Miss Grant. 

222 The Sun-Maid *25 

665 Cara Roma *25 

Annabel Gray, 

1174 Terribly Tempted *25 

Arnold Gray. 

906 Periwinkle *25 


Maxwell Gray. 

1034 The Silence of Dean Mait- 
land 25 

1182 The Reproach of Annes- 

ley 25 

1839 In the Heart of the 
Storm *25 

Henri Greville. 

1678 Frankley *25 

Cecil Griffith. 

583 Victory Deane *25 

Arthur Grifiiths. 

614 No. 99 *25 

680 Fast and Loose *25 

2028 Lola *25 

Brothers Grimm. 

1509 Grimm’s Fairy Tales. 

(Illustrated.) *25 

Author of “Guilty Without 
Clime.’’ 

545 Vida’s Stor}". .^t *26 

Guinevere. 

1805 Little Jewel... *25 

Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison. 

1610 History of the Mormons.*26 

F. W. Hacklander. 

1669 Forbidden Fruit *36 

H. Rider Haggard. 

432 The Witch’s Head 25 

753 King Solomon’s Mines.. 25 
910 She: A History of Ad- 
venture 25 

941 Jess 25 

959 Dawn 25 

989 Allan Quatermain 35 

1049 A Tale of Three Lions, 

and On Going Back *25 

1100 Mr. Meeson's Will ^ 

1105 Maiwa’s Revenge *^ 

1140 Colonel Quaritch, V. C. ..*^ 

1145 My Fellow Laborer *^ 

1190 Cleopatra: Being an Ac- 
count of the Fall and 
Vengeance of Har- 
machis, the Royal Egyp- 
tift,n, as Set Forth by his 


own Hand 25 

1248 Allan’s Wife *25 

1335 Beatrice *25 

1635 The World’s Desire. By 
H. Rider Haggard and 

Andrew Lang *25 

1849 Eric Brighteyes ^ 

Liidovic Halevy. 

1408 L’Abb6 Constantio *96 


POCKET EDITION, 


17 


Georgre Hnise. 

1786 The Weeping Ferry *25 

Thomas Hardy. 

139 The Romantic Advent- 
ures of a Milkmaid 25 

630 A Pair of BUie Eyes 25 

690 Far From the Maddins 

Crowd 25 

791 The Mayor of Caster- 

bridge *25 

945 The Trumpet-Major *25 

957 The Woodlanders *25 

1309 Desperate Remedies *25 

1430 Two on a Tower *25 

1973 A Laodicean *25 

1974 The Hand of Ethelberta*25 

1975 The Return of the Native*25 

1976 Under the Greenwood 

Tree *25 

Beatrice Harraden, 

2071 Ships That Pass in the 

Night *25 

1067 At the Green Dragon — 25 
John B. Harwood, 

143 One False, Both Fair.... *25 

3.58 Within the Clasp *25 

1307 The Lady Egeria *25 

Joseph Hatton. 

1390 Clytie *25 

1429 By Order of the Czar. . ..*25 

1480 Cruel London *25 

1764 The Abbey Murder *25 

1786 The Great World *25 

2008 A Modern Ulysses *25 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

1590 Twice-Told Tales 25 

1592 Grandfather s Chair ...*25 

1969 The Scarlet Letter 25 

1970 Legends of the Province 

House.. .. - *25 

1971 Mosses from an Old 

Manse -*25 

1972 The New Adam and Eve, 

and Other Stories *25 

Mary Cecil Hay, 

65 Back to the Old Home.. 25 
72 Old Myddelton’s Money 25 

196 Hidden Perils 25 

197 For Her Dear Sake 25 

224 The Arundel Motto 25 

281 The Squire’s Legacy 25 

290 Nora’s Love Test 25 

408 Lester's Secret 25 

678 Dorothy’s Venture 25 

716 Victor and Vanquished.. *25 

849 A Wicked Girl 25 

987 Brenda Yorke 25 

1026 A Dark Inheritance *25 

16^ Under the Will *25 

1678 My First Offer 25 


W. Heiiiibnrg. 

994 A Penniless Orphan *26 

1175 A Tale of an Old Castle.. 26 

1188 My Heart’s Darling *25 

1216 The Story of a Clergy- 
man’s Daughter *25 

1242 Lenore Von Tollen *25 

1211) Gertrude’s Marriage 25 

1289 Her Only Brother 26 

Fr. Henkel. 

1030 The Mistress of Ibich- 
stein *25 

G. A. Henty. 

1224 The Curse o f Carne’s 

Hold *25 

1818 A Hidden Foe *25 

H. Herman. 

1419 Scarlet Fortune *26 

John Hill. 

112 The Waters of Marah...*25 

Mrs. Cashel-Hoey. 

313 The Lover's Creed *25 

802 A Stern Chase... *25 

Thomas Holcomb. 

1369 The Counterfeiters of the 
Cuyahoga *25 

G. II. Hollister. 

2033 Kinley Hollow *25 

Mrs. M. A. Holmes. 

1338 A Woman’s Vengeance. .*25 

1.546 Woman Against Woman*25 

Thomas Hood. 

407 Tylney Hall *2.' 

Anthony Hope. 

2097 A Change of Air 25 

2098 The Dolly Dialogues 25 

2140 Sport Royal 25 

Tighe Hopkins. 

.509 Nell Haffenden *26 

114 'Twixt Loveand Duty. ..*25 
2006 The Incomplete Advent- 
urer, and the Boom in 
Bell-Topps *25 

Arabella 31. Hopkinson. 

1348 Life’s Fitful Fever *26 

3Iary Hoppus. 

170 A Great Treason *26 

Robert Houdin. 

1406 The Tricks of the Gre©k8*26 


18 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


Lady Constance Howard. 


1859 Sweetheart and Wife.... *25 
1884 Mollie Darling *25 

Thomas Hughes* 

120 Tom Brown’s School 

Days at Rugby 25 

1139 Toni Brown at Oxford.. 25 

Victor Hugo. 

885 Les Mis6rables. Part I. . 25 
885 Les Mis^rables. Part II. 25 
885 LesMis6rables. Part III. 25 


*135 The Hunchback of Notre 


Dame 25 

Mary E. Hiillah. 

*042 In Hot Haste *25 

Fergus W. Hume. 

1075 The Mystery of a Han- 
som Cab 25 

1127 Madam Midas *25 


1232 The Piccadilly Puzzle. . .*25 
1425 The Man with a Secret. .*25 
1904 The Girl From Malta — *25 
1934 The Year of Miracle. . .*x.’5 
1964 The Man Who Vanished*25 
1992 Miss Mephistopheles *25 

Mrs. Alfred Hunt. 


915 That Other Person *25 

2029 The Leaden Casket *25 


Stanley Huntley. 

1466 The Spoopendyke Papers*25 
Jean Ingelow. 

1563 Quite Another Story *25 

Colonel Prentiss Ingraham. 

1792 The Rival Cousins *25 

“Iota.” 

2083 A Yellow Aster 25 

2090 Miss Milne and 1 25 

Ralph Iron [Olive Schrei- 
ner]. 

1120 The Story of an African 

Farm 25 

1814 Dreams *25 

Washington Irving. 

643 The Sketch-Book of Ge- 
offrey Crayon, Gent 25 

1682 The Alhambra 25 

Chas. James* 

1854 Galloping Days at the 

Deanery *25 

1869 Against the Grain *25 

G. P. R. James. 
tl8 Agnes Sorel *25 


Harriet Jay. 

334 A Marriage of Conveni- 
ence'. ... *25 

1412 The Dark Colleen 

Mrs. C. Jenkin. 

2040 “ Who Breaks, Pays “..*25 

2041 Jupiter’s Daughters. .. .*25 


2050 Skirmishing *2.5 

2052 Within an Ace *26 


Edw'ard Jenkins. 

458 A Week of Passion ; or, 
The Dilemma of Mr. 
George Barton the 

Younger *25 

810 The Secret of Her Life. .*25 

Philippa Prittie Jephson. 

176 An April Day *25 

Jerome K. Jerome. 

1331 The Idle Thoughts of an 

Idle Fellow 25 

1359 Stageland 25 

1517 Three Men in a Boat 25 

H. T. Johnson. 

1183 Jack of Hearts. A Story 
of Bohemia *25 

Evelyn Kimball Johnson. 

1361 Tangles Unravelled *26 

Samuel Johnson, LL.D. 

1384 The History of Rasselas, 
Prince of Abyssinia 26 

H. H. Johnston. 

1212 The History of a Slave.. *26 

Mauriis Jokai. 

2130 Timar’s Two Worlds 25 

Author of “Judith Wynne.” 

332 Judith Wynne *26 

506 Lady Lovelace *25 

L. Keith. 

1837 A Lost Illusion *26 

Mrs. F. A. Kemble. 

2059 Far Away and Long Ago*95 

Mrs. Edward Kenuard. 

1092 A Glorious Gallop *26 

1282 Matron or Inlaid *25 

1863 A Crack County *^ 

1871 Straight as a Die *^ 

1924 The Girl in the Brown 
Habit *25 

Grace Kennedy. 

1464 Dunallan *96 


POCKET EDITION. 


19 


jolin P. Kennedy. 

1440 Borse-Shoe Robinson. . .*25 
Itichnrd Ashe Kins:. 

1262 Passion’s Slave *25 

Clinrles Kiug:sley. 

266 The Water-Babies *25 

1320 Hypatia *25 

1985 Two Years Ago *25 

Henry Kingsley. 

1710 Austin Eliot *25 

1712 Tlie Hillyars and the 

Burtons *25 

1715 Leighton Court *25 

1718 Geoffrey Hamlyn *25 

William H. G. Kingston. 

117 A Tale of the Shore and 

Ocean *25 

133 Peter the Whaler *25 

761 Will Weatherhelm *25 

763 The Midshipman, Mar- 

maduke Merry *25 

1568 Round the World *25 

1573 MarkSeaworth *25 

1577 The Y oung Foresters — *25 

1580 Salt Water *25 

1952 Dick Cheveley *25 

Beatrice Kipling. 

1925 The Heart of a Maid . .*25 


Itndyard Kipling. 

1439 Plain Tales from the 

Hills 25 

1443 SoldiersThree. and Other 

Stories 25 


1479 The Phantom ’Rickshaw 25 
1499 The Story of the Gadsbys 25 
1719 The Light That Failed . . 25 
1809 Under the Deodars, and 

Other Tales 25 

1909 Mine Own People 25 

2131 American Notes 25 

21^ The Courting of Dinah 

Shadd 25 

1. 1. Kraszewski. 

1174 The Polish Princess *25 

1207 The Princess and the 

Jew.... *25 

Author of “liOdy Gwendo- 
len’s Tryst.” 

809 Witness My Hand *25 

May Imflan. 

681 A Singer’s Story *25 

2024 Christy Carevv *25 

2025 The Hon. Miss Ferrard. .*26 

A. E. Lancaster. 

1898 All’s Dross But Love. ... *25 


Andrew Lang. 

773 The Mark of Cain *26 

1635 The World’s Desire. By 
H. Rider Haggard and 
Andrew' Lang *26 

Mrs. Andrew Lang. 

536 Dissolving Views *25 

A. I.a Pointe. 

1612 Rival Doctors. *26 

Hon. Emily liawless. 

748 Hnrrish: A Study *25 

2062 A Millionaire’s Cousin.. *25 
M. E. Le Clerc. 

1220 Mistress Beatrice Cojie; 
or. Passages in the Life 
of a Jacobite’s Daugh- 


ter *25 

Vernon Lee. 

399 Miss Brown *25 


859 Ottilie: An Eighteenth 
Century Idyl. By Ver- 
non Lee. The Prince of 
the 100 Soups. Edited 

by Vernon Lee *25 

1727 A Phantom Lover *25 

Jules Lermina. 

1622 The Chase *25 

H. F. Lester. 

1531 Hartas Maturin *26 

Charles Lever. 

191 Harry Lorrequer 25 

212 Charles O’Malley, the 

Irish Dragoon 26 

243 Tom Burke of “ Ours.” 25 
2070 Jack Hinton, the Guards- 
man 25 

Fanny Lewald. 

436 Stella *25 

George Henry Lewes. 

442 Ranthorpe *26 

Paul Lindaii. 

2053 Klaus Browser’s Wife. . . .*25 
Mavr Linskill. 

473 A Lost Son *26 

620 Between the Heather 
an<i the Northern Sea.. *26 
1687 In Exchange for a Soul. *26 

Mrs. E. l.ynn Linton. 

122 lone Stewart *25 

817 Stabbed in the Dark *26 

886 Paston Carew, Million- 
aire and Miser *25 

1109 Through the Long Nights*25 

1417 Under Which Lord? *26 

1507 Sow ing the Wind *26 


20 


THE SEASn)E LIBRARY. 


Mri^. liodgre. 

174 Under a Ban *25 

Author of “Trover and 
liord.” 

510 A Mad Love 25 

Samuel Lover. 

663 Handy Andy 25 

664 Kory O’More *25 

1386 The Happy Man and the 

Hall Porter *25 

Henry W. Lucy. 

1452 Gideon Fleyce *25 

Henry C. Lukens. 

1475 Jets and Flashes *25 

Edna Lyall. 

738 In the Golden Da 3 ’S 25 

1147 Knight-Errant 25 

1149 Donovan: A Modern Eu- 

grlislinian 25 

1160 We Two 25 

1173 Won by Waiting 25 

1196 A Hardy Norseman 25 

1197 The Autobiography of a 

Slander 25 

1206 Derrick Vaughan — 

Novelist 25, 

Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. 

40 The Last Days of Pom- 
peii 25 

83 A Strange Story 25 

90 Ernest Maltravers 25 

130 The Last of the Barons. 25 

161 The Lady of Lyons. 

Founded on the Play... 25 

162 Eugene Aram *25 

164 Leila; or, The Siege of 

Grenada 25 

660 Alice; or, The Mysteries. 

(A Sequel to “Ernest 

Maltravers”) 25 

720 Paul Clifford 25 

1144 Rienzi 25 

1326 What Will He Do With It? 25 

1339 The Caxtons 25 

13i>3 The Coining Race *25 

1420 The Haunted House 25 

1446 Zanoni 25 

144K Night and Morning. ...*.. 25 

1474 Money *25 

1485 Richelieu 25 

1492 Pelham 25 

1510 The Disowned 25 

1512 Kenelm Chillingly 25 

1521 Deverenx *25 

1524 Lucretia *25 

1.526 The Parisians *25 

1582 My Novel. Parti 25 

1532 My Novel. Part 11 ^ 

15;)2 My Novel. Part III 25 

1684 Harold.. • 26 


Maarten Mnartens. 

1323 The Sin of Joost Avelingh 26 
1651 The Black Box Murder.. *26 
1885 An Old Maid’s Love *25 

11 ugh MacColI. 

1319 Mr. Strangers’ Sealed 
Packet *26 

George Macdonald. 

282 Donal Grant *25 

325 The Portent *25 

326 Phautastes. A Faerie Ro- 

mance for Men and 

Women *25 

722 What’s Mine’s Mine *26 

1041 Home Again *25 

1118 The Elect Lady *26 

Charles Mackay. 

1754 The Twin Soul *26 

Norman Macleod, U.D. 

158 The Starling *26 

Katharine 8. Macquoid. 

479 Louisa *25 

914 Joan Wentworth *25 

1283 Cosette *25 

1306 The Haunted Fountain, 
and Hett.y’8 Revenge. . .*26 
1311 At the Red Glove........ *25 

1473 ]\Iiss Eyon of Eyon Court 25 

1495 The Old Court 5 'ard *^ 

1691 Elizabeth Morley *25 

1856 Mrs. Rumbold’s Secret. .*^ 

Author of ** Mademoiselle 
Mori.” 

920 A Child of the Revolution*25 

I.ady Margaret Mojendie. 

185 Dita *26 

1872 On the Scent *25 

2030 Giannetto *^ 

Lucas Malet. 

493 Colonel Enderby’s Wrfe.*25 
1771 The Wages of Sin 25 

Alessandro Manzoni. 

581 The Betrothed. (I Pro- 
messi Sposi) *25 

E. Marlitt. 

652 The Lady with the Rubies 25 
8.58 Old Ma’m’selle’s Secret. 25 

972 Gold Elsie 25 

999 The Second Wife 25 

1093 In the Schillingscourt. .. ^ 
nil In the Counsellor’s House 25 

1113 The Bniliff’s Maid 25 

1115 The Countess Gisela 26 

1130 The Owl-House 25 

1136 The Princess of the Moot 25 


j 


1 


POCKET EDITION. 


21 


Garnett Mariiell# 

1915 Merit versus Money *25 

Captain Marryat, 

88 The Privateersman 25 

272 The Little Savage 25 

279 Rattlin, the Reefer 25 

901 Mr. Midshipman Easy.. . 25 

1165 The Sea-King 25 

1218 Masterman Ready 25 

1230 The Phantom Ship 25 

2106 Japhet in Search of a. 

Father 25 

2107 Jacob Faithful 25 


Ethel Marryat. 

1519 A Professional L a d y - 
Killer *25 

Florence Marryat. 

159 Captain Norton’s Diary, 
and A Moment of Mad 

ness *25 

183 Old Contrairy, and Other 

Stories *25 

208 The Ghost of Charlotte 
Cray, and Other Stories*25 
276 Under the Lilies and 

Roses *25 

444 The Heart of Jane War- 
ner *25 

449 Peeress and Player *25 

689 The Heir Presumptive.. ,*25 
825 The Master Passion. . ... .*25 

860 Her Lord and Master — *25 

861 My Sister the Actress. . .*25 

863 “ My Own Child.” *25 

864 ” No Intentions.^’ *25 

865 Written in Fire *25 

866 Miss Harrington’s Hus- 

band ; or, Spiders o f 
Society *25 

867 The Girls of Feversham.*25 

868 Petronel 25 

869 The Poison of Asps *25 

870 Out of His Reckoning.. *25 

872 With Cupid’s Eyes *25 

873 A Harvest of Wild Oats. *25 
877 Facing the Footlights, . .*25 

893 Love’s Conflict *25 

895 A Star and a Heart *25 

897 A n g e ; or, A Broken 

Blossom 25 

899 A Little Stepson *25 

901 A LuckyDisappointment*25 

903 Phyllida *25 

905 The Fair-Haired Alda. . .*25 

939 Why Not? *25 

993 Fighting the Air *25 

998 Open Sesame *^2 

1004 Mad Dumaresq -*25 

1013 The Confessions of 

Gerald Estcourt *25 

1022 Driven to Bay *25 


1126 Gentleman and Courtier*25 

1184 A Crown of Shame *25 

1191 On Circumstantial Evi- 
dence *25 

1250 How They Loved Him. . .*25 

1251 Her Father’s Name *25 

1257 Mount Eden *25 

13.55 Blindfold *25 

1.527 A Scarlet Sin *25 

1643 Brave Heart and True. . .*25 

16.56 The Root of All Evil *25 

1674 Her World Against aLie*25 

1S18 TheRi.sen Dead *25 

1868 A Broken Blossom *25 

Eiiiiiia Marshall. 

766 No. XIII; or. The Story 
of the Lost Vestal *25 

Owen Marston. 

1918 Lover and Husband *25 

Mrs. Herbert Martin. 

1.56 ” For a Dream’s Sake .*25 

1796 AmorVincit *25 

Harriet Martineau. 

1332 Homes Abroad *25 

1:3;I4 For Each and For All. ..*25 

1.336 Hill and Valley *25 

1585 Tales of the French 

Revolution *25 

1.586 Loom and Lugger *25 

1,588 Berkeley the Banker — *25 

1.593 The Charmed Sea *25 

1594 Life in the Wilds *25 

1.596 Sowers, Not Reapers *25 

1597 The Glen of the Echoes. *26 
Ik. Marvel. 

2108 Reveries of a Bachelor. . 25 

2141 Dream Life 25 

Charles Marvin. 

457 The Russians at the 

Gates of Herat *25 

Helen B. Mathers. 

13 Eyre's Acquittal *25 

221 Cornin’ Thro’ the Rye... 25 

4.38 Found Out *25 

535 IMurder or Manslaughter r'*25 

67.3 Story of a Sin *26 

713 “ Cherry Ripe ” 25 

795 Sam’s Sweetheart *25 

798 The Fashion of this 

World *25 

799 My Lady Green Sleeves. 25 

1254 Hedri; or, Blind Justice *25 
1830 The Mystery of No. 13... *26 
1907 My Jo. John *25 

A. Matthey. 

1239 The Virgin Widow. A 

Realistic Novel *26 

14,32 Duke of Kandos *25 

1436 The Two Duchesses *26 


22 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


Isabella Fyvie Mayo. 

662 The Mystery of Allan 
Grale. *25 

W. S. Mayo. 

1442 The Berber *25 

C. Maxwell. 

1362 A Story of Three Sisters*25 

Justin McCarthy. 

121 Maid of Athens *25 

602 Camiola 

685 England Under Glad- 
stone. 1880-1885 *25 

747 Our Sensation Novel. 
Edited by Justin H. Mc- 
Carthy, M. P *25 

779 Doom 1 An Atlantic Epi- 
sode *25 

12.3.3 Roland Oliver *25 

1903 Dolly - *25 

Justin McCarthy and Mrs. 
Cninpbell Praed. 

1403 The Rival Princess *25 

1840 The Ladies’ Gallery *25 

L. T. Meade. 

1295 A Girl of the People *25 

1487 Frances Kane's Fortune.*25 
1572 How It All Came Round*2o 

1631 Heart of Gold *25 

1759 The Honorable Miss *25 

1836 Beforehand *25 

1865 A Life for a Love *25 

George Meredith. 

350 Diana of the Crossways. 25 

1146 Rhoda Fleming *25 

1150 The Egoist 

1695 The Case of General 
Ople and Lady Camper*25 
1807 The Tale of Chloe *25 

Paul Meritt. 

1811 Daughters of Eve *25 

Frank Merryfield. 

1850 Molly’s Story *25 

Jean Middlemas. 

155 Lady Muriel's Secret. ... *25 

539 Silvermead *25 

1847 The Maddoxes *25 

Prof. William Minto. 

1910 Was She Good or Bad?.. *25 
1993 The Crack of Doom *^ 

Mrs. Moleswortli. 

654 ‘‘Us.” An Old-fashioned 

Story *25 

992 Marrying and Giving in 
Marriage *25 


1914 That Girl in Black *25 

2026 Hather Court *25 

J. FitzgeraUl Molloy. 

14.51 How Came He Dead?.. . .*25 
1757 A Modern Magician *25 

Florence Montgomery. 

1942 Sea forth *25 

1945 Thwarted *25 

Susanna Moodie. 

1702 Geoffrey Moncton *25 

1704 Flora Lyndsay *25 

1705 Life in the Back woods.. .*25 


1724 Roughing It in the Bush*25 
1733 Life in the Clearings *25 

George Moore. 

2084 Esther Waters 26 

Arthur Morrison. 

2142 Tales of Mean Streets. . . 25 

Edward H. Mott. 

1481 Pike County Folks *26 

Louisa Muhibach. 

1677 Frederick the Great and 

His Court *25 

1693 Goetlie and Schiller.. ..*25 

1728 The Daughter of an Em- 
press 25 

1737 Queen Hortense *25 

Alan Muir. 

172 “Golden Girls” *25 

346 Tumbledown Farm *25 

Rosa Mulholland. 

921 The Late Miss Holling- 

ford .*26 

Miss Mulock. 

11 John Halifax, Gentle- 
man 25 

245 Miss Tommy, and In a 

House-Boat *26 

808 King Arthur. Not a Love 

Story *25 

1018 Two Marriages *^ 

1038 Mistuess and Maid *^ 

1053 Young Mrs. Jardine 25 

David Christie Murray. 

58 By the Gnte of the Sea.. *25 
195 “ T he Way of the 

World ”.... *25 

320 A Bit of Human Nature*25 

661 Rainbow GoJd 

674 First Pei son Singular. . .*25 

691 Valentine Strange *^ 

695 Henris: Queen, Knave, 

and Deuce *25 

698 A Life's Atonement.. . *^ 
737 Aunt Rachel 


POCKET EDITIOK. 




William O’Brien. 

1920 O’Hara’s Mission *25 


826 Cynic Fortune *25 

898 Bulldog and Butterfl.y, 
and Julia and Her Ro- 
meo *25 

1102 Young Mr. Barter’s Re- 
pentance *25 

1162 The Weaker Vessel *25 

1745 One Traveler Returns ..*25 
1887 Old Balzer’s Hero *25 

D. C. iVIiirrny and Henry 
ileriiian. 

1177 A Dangerous Cat’s-paw. *25 

1214 Wild Darrie *25 

1256 Sweetbriar in Town *25 

1567 The Bishops’ Bible *25 

1922 He Fell Among Thieves. *25 

Author of “My Ducats and 
My Daughter.” 

376 The Crime of Christmas 

Day *25 

696 My Ducats and My 
Daughter *25 

Author of “My Marriage.” 

778 Society’s Verdict *25 

Mrs. J. H. Needell. 

682 Lucia, Hugh and An- 
other *25 

Author of “ Nobody’s Dar- 
ling.” 

S)64 A Girl’s Heart *36 

W. E. Norris. 

184 Thirlby Hall 25 

277 A Man of His Word *25 

355 That Terrible Man *25 

500 Adrian Vidal *25 

8^ Her Own Doing *25 

848 My Friend Jim *25 

871 A Bachelor’s Blunder. . .*25 

1019 Major and Minor *25 

1084 Chris *35 

1141 The Rogue 25 

1203 MissShafto *25 

1258 Mrs. Fenton *25 

1278 Misadvetcure *25 

1395 The Baffled Conspirators*25 

1465 No New Thing. *25 

1675 Marcia *25 

1933 Miss Wentworth’s Idea. *25 
1941 Mysterious Mrs. Wilkin- 
son *25 

19.57 Mr. C.haine’s Son *25 

1995 Heaps of Money *25 

1996 Matrimony. *25 

F. E. M. Notley. 

1788 From the Other Side.... *25 
Christopher Oakes. 

1084 The Canaan Senator. .*35 


Mrs. Power O’Donoghue. 


718 Unfairly Won *25 

Alice O’Hanlon. 

634 The Unfore.seen *25 

1357 A Diamond in the Rough*25 
1867 Chance or Fate? *25 

Georges Ohnet. 

219 Lady Clare: or, The 
Master of the Forges. . . 25 

1274 Prince Serge Panine *25 

1288 A Last Love *25 

1321 The Rival Actresses *25 

1683 A Weird Gift *25 

1860 Claire and the Forge 

Master *25 

1990 Dr. Rameau *25 

Laurence Oliphant. 

47 Altiora Peto *25 

537 Piccadilly *25 

Mrs. Oliphant. 

45 A Little Pilgrim *25 

177 Salem Chapd *25 

205 The Minister’s Wife *25 

321 The Prodigals, and Their 
Inheritance *25 


337 Memoirs and Resolutions 
of Adam Graeme of 
Mossgray, including 
some Chronicles of the 

Borough of Fendie *26 

345 Madam *25 

351 The House on the Moor. *25 
357 John *25 

370 Lucy Crofton *25 

371 Margaret Maitland *25 

377 Magdalen Hepburn : A 

Story of the Scottish Re- 

forrhation *25 

402 Lillieslf*af ; or. Passages 
in the Life of Mrs Mar- 
garet Maitland of Sun- 
ny side *25 

410 Old I.ady Mary *25 

527 The Day's of My Life... *25 

528 At His Gates *25 

568 The Perpetual Curate... *25 

569 Harry Muir *25 

603 Agnes *25 

604 Innocent *25 

60.5 Omhra *25 

645 Oliver’s Bride *25 

655 The Open Door, and The 

Portrait *25 

687 A Country Gentleman... *25 
703 A House Divided Against 

Itself * 3 » 

710 The Greatest Heiress in 
England ••*’95 


24 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY, 


827 Effie Ogilvie *25 

880 The Son of His Father.. *25 

902 A Poor Gentleman *25 

1471 Tl>e I..adies Lindores *25 

1490 Sir Tom *25 

1570 The Wizard’s Son *25 

1882 The Heir Presumptive 
and the Heir Apparent. 25 
1949 The Railway Man and 

His Child *25 

2017 White Ladies *25 

Max O’Kell. 

^203 John Bull and His Island 25 
1222 Jacques Bonhomme, and 
John Bull on the Con- 


tinent *25 

1617 John Bull and His 
Daughters *25 

“ Oiiida,” 

4 Under Two P’lags 25 

9 Wanda, Countess von 

Szalras 25 

116 Moths : 25 

128 Afternoon, and Other 

Sketclies *25 

226 Friendship 25 

228 Princess Napraxine. . . . 25 

238 Pascarel 25 

239 Signa 25 

433 A Rainy June *25 

639 Otlunar 25 

671 Don Gesualdo *25 

672 In Maremma *25 

874 A House Party *25 

974 Strathmore ; or,Wrought 

by His Own Hand 25 

961 Granville de Vigne; or, 

Held in Bondage 25 

996 Idalia 25 

1000 Puck 25 

1003 Chan d os 25 

1017 Tricotrin 25 

1176 Guilderoy 25 

1308 Svrlin 25 

1575 Ruffino *25 

1937 B6b6e; or. Two Little 
Wooden Shoes *25 

1959 Santa Barbara *25 

1960 Kinaldo *25 

Louisa Parr. 

1428 Robin *25 

1.587 Dumps *25 

1997 Hero Carthevv *25 

1998 Loyalty *25 

James Payii. 

48 Thicker Than Water... *25 
186 The Canon’s Ward *25 


J43 The Talk of the Town. . .*25 
577 In Peril and Privation. .*25 
860 The Luck of theDarrells*25 


823 The Heir of the Ages. . .*96 


1271 One of the P'amily *25 

1381 The Burnt Million *25 

1405 The Eavesdropper *25 


1555 The Word and the Will*26 
17'53 A Prince of the Blood. . .*25 
1888 Sunny Stories and Some 
Shady Ones 

Sylvio Pellico. 

725 My Ten Years’ Imprison- 
ment *26 

Author of “Petite’s Ro- 
mance.’’ 

786 Ethel Mildmay’s Follies*25 
F. C. Philips. 

1287 A Daughter’s Sacrifice.. *25 

Arthur W. Pinero. 

1372 Sweet Lavender *26 

C. L. Pirkiss. 

1797 A Dateless Bargain *25 

William Pole, F.R.S. 

669 The Philosophy of Whist 26 

Miss Jane Porter. 

660 The Scottish Chiefs 25 

696 Thaddeus of Warsaw... Sj6 

Cecil Power. 

336 Philistia *26 

611 Babylon *25 

E. Frances Poynter. 

526 Madame De Presnel *25 

1.52:3 'I'he Failure of Elizabeth*26 

2031 Ersilia *25 

2036 3Iy Little Lady *25 

2045 Among the Hills *25 

Mrs. Campbell Praed. 

428 Zero : A Story of Monte- 

Carlo *26 

477 Aflinities *^ 

811 The Head Station *25 

12iX) An Australian Heroine.. *25 
1876 The Soul of Countess 
Adrian ....*25 

Edgar Allaa Poe. 

1602 Narrative of A. Gordon 

Pyrn *25 

1604 Gold Bug, and Other 

Tales . .*26 

1609 The Assignation, and 

Other Tales *26 

1613 The Murders in the Rue 
Morgue *25 

Alice Price. 

908 AWillful Y«iuig Woman*Mi 


POCKET EDITION. 


25 


Eleanor C. Price. 

149 The Ca.ptain’s Dauj^hter. 
From the Russian of 


Ptishkin *25 

173 The Foreigners *25 

331 Gerald *25 


A II til or of “ Qiinclroona.” 

1356 Plot and Counterplot ...*25 

Author of “Qiieeu of the 
C’oiiuty.” 

1438 Margaret and Her Brides- 
maids *25 

Queen Victoria. 

‘8 More Leaves from the 
Journal of a Life in the 
Highlands *25 

Hyder Ragged. 

966 He *25 

970 King Solomon’s Wives; 
or. The Phantom Mines*25 

Rudolph Eric Raspe. 

1433 Baron Munchausen 25 

Charles Reade. 

46 Very Hard Cash 25 

98 A Woman-Hater 25 

206 The Picture, and Jack 

of All Trades *25 

210 Readiana: Comments on 
Current Events *25 

213 A Terrible Temptation . . 25 

214 Put Yourself in His Place 25 

216 Foul Play 25 

231 Griffith Gaunt; or, Jeal- 

ousy 25 

232 Love and Money ; or, A 

Perilous Secret 25 

235 “ It is Never Too Late to 
Mend.” A Matter-of- 

Fact Romance 25 

1382 Single Heart and Double 

Face *25 

1648 The Knightsbridge Mys- 
tery 25 

2069 ” Love Me Little, Love 

Me Long ” -25 

2082 The Cloister and the 

Hearth 25 

Compton Reade. 

«i0 Under Which King? *25 

R. F. Redd. 

1410 Freckles *25 

1600 The Brierfield Tragedy . .*25 

Captain Mayiie Reid. 

W5 The Finger o£ Fate *25 


T. Weiiiyss Reid. 

723 Mauleverer s Millions.. .*26 
Fritz Renter, 

750 An Old Story o f My 

Farming Days *2& 

nirs. J. II. Riddell. 

71 A Struggle for Fame... *25 

593 Herna Boyle *25 

1007 ]\Iiss (lascoigne *25 

1077 The Nun’s Curse 25 

1273 Su.san Drummond *25 

1579 Princess Sunshine *25 

1842 Idle Tales *25 

1899 My First Love and My 

Last Love 25 

“Rita.’* 

252 A Sinless Secret *25 

446 Dame Durden *25 

598 “ Corinna.” AStudy...*25 

617 Like Dian’s Kiss *25 

1125 The Mystery of a Turkish 

Bath *25 

1192 Bliss Kate; or. Confes- 
sions of a Caretaker. ..*25 

1215 Adrian Lyle *25 

1229 Sheba A Study of 

Girlhood *25 

1237 A Vagal)ond Lover *25 

1252 The Seventh Dream *25 

1253 The Lady e Nancy e *25 

1298 Gretclnm *25 

1315 A Society Scandal *25 

1491 The Doctor’s Secret *25 

1760 Two Bad Blue Eyes. . . *25 

1766 After Long Grief and 

Pain *25 

1769 Bly Lady Coquette *25 

1770 Vivienne *25 

1772 Countess Daphne *25 

1773 Faustine *25 

1774 Fragolefta *25 

1778 Bly Lord Conceit *25 

1823 Darby and Joan *25 

1837 The Laird o’ Cockpen..*25 

miss Itoberts. 

2000 Noblesse Oblige *26 

2000 On the Edge of the 

Storm *25 

2061 In the Olden Time *25 

Sir II. Roberts. 

14.58 Harry Holbrooke 25 

1<)47 Curb and Stiaffie *25 

1841 In theSliires *25 

CL M. Robins. 

1731 The Tree of Knowledge. *25 

1929 Keep My Secret *25 

F. Hlabel l{obinsoii. 

501 BIr. Butler’s Ward. .... . *25 

1457 A Woman of the World. *26 
1955 Hovenden, V. C 


26 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


F. VV. Kobiuson. 

157 Milly’sHero *25 

217 The Man She Cared Foi *25 

261 A Fan- Maid *25 

455 Lazarus in London *25 

590 T lie Courting of Marj- 

Smith *25 

1005 99 Dark Street *25 

1284 Our Erring Brother *25 

1539 A Very Strange Family. *25 
1547 The Keeper of the Keys. *25 

A« F. ni« Kobinson* 

1477 Arden *25 

Regina Maria Roche* 

862 The Children of the Ab- 
bey *25 

Mrs. J. Harcoiirt Roe. 

683 The Bachelor Vicar of 
Newforth ...*25 

Ml’S. Rowson. i 

61 Charlotte Temple 25 

1803 Lucy Temple 25 

W. Clark Russell. 

85 A Sea Queen 25 

109 Little Loo 25 

180 Round the Galley Fire.. 25 
209 John Holdsworth, Chief 

Mate 25 

223 A Sailor’s Sweetheart.. . 25 

592 A Strange Voyage 25 

682 In the Middle Watch. Sea 

Stories 25 

743 Jack’s Courtship 25 

884 A Voyage to the Cape. . . 25 

916 The Golden Hope 25 

1044 The Frozen Pirate 25 

1048 The Wreck of the “Gros- 

venor ” 25 

1129 The Flying Dutchman; 

or, The Death Ship *25 

1210 Marooned *25 

1213 Jenny Harlowe *25 

1260 An Ocean 'fragedy 25 

1603 My Shipmate Louise *25 

1619 A Marriage at Sea *25 

16.34 On the Fo’k’sle Head... *25 
1867 My Danish Sweetheart.. 25 

Dora Russell. 

103 Rose Fleming *25 

1713 Jezebel’s Friends *^ 

1726 The Broken Seal *^ 

1751 A Bitter Birthright *25 

1789 A Strange Message *25 

1927 Out of Eden *25 

1930 A Fatal Past *25 


George AngiiMtiis Sala. 

756 The Strange Advetitures 
of Captain Dai gerous. 

A Narrative in Plain En- 
glish *25 

1919 Dead Men Tell No Tales, *25 

George .Soinl. 

1478 The Tower of Percemont*25 
1662 The Lilies of Florence. ..*25 

John Saunders. 

105 A Noble Wife *26 

1912 Robbing Peter to Pay 
Paul *26 

Olive Schreiner. 

1120 The Storj' of an African 

Farm *25 

1814 Dreams... * 1 ^ 

Michael Scott. 

1489 Tom Cringle’s Log *25 

Sir Walter Scott. 

28 Ivan hoe 25 

201 The Monastery ‘25 

202 The Abbot. (Sequel to 

“ The Monastery ”) 25 

353 The Black Dwarf, and 
A Legend of Montrose*25 

362 The Bride of Lammer- 

moor 25 

363 The Surgeon’s Daughter*^ 

364 Castle Dangerous *25 

391 The Heart of Mid-Loth- 

ian *25 

392 Peveril of the Peak.... *^ 

393 The Pirate * 1 ^ 

401 Waverley *;^ 

417 The Fair Maid of Perth; 

or, St. Valentine’s Day. 25 

418 St. Ronan’s W’ell *^ 

463 Redgauutlet. A Tale of 

the Eighteenth Century*25 
507 Chronicles of the Canon- 
gate. and Other Stories*25 
1060 The I.adi’ of the Lake. . . 25 

1063 Kenilworth ^ 

1164 Rob Roy *25 

1166 The Betrothed: A Tale 
of the Crusaders, and 
the Chronicles of the 

Canongate *25 

1226 The Talisman % 

1956 The Fortunes of Nigel. 

1958 Woodstock ; or. The Cav- 
alier *26 

1961 Count Robert of Paris ..*^ 

1963 Anne of Geierstein *2S 

1991 Quentin Durward 

Eugene Scribe. 

1416 Fleurette *fi 


POCKET EDITION. 


2? 


Adeline Sergeant. 

257 Beyonii Recall *25 

812 No Saint *25 

1231 A Life Sentence *25 

1241 The Luck of the House. *25 

131C A 'I'rue Friend *25 

1503 Under P'alse Pretences. .*25 

1513 Fleetwood's End *25 

1691 The Great Mill Street 

Mystery *25 

1775 Name and Fame. By 
Adeline Sergeant and 

Ewing Lesfer *25 

1781 Jacobi’s Wife 25 

1837 Roy's Repentance *25 

1838 Brooke’s Daughter *25 

1866 Seventy Times Seven ...*25 

1981 Esther Denison *25 

Anna Sewell. 

1421 “Black Beauty:” The 
Autobiography of a 
Horse 25 

William Sharp. 

1559 Children of To-morrow. .*25 
Flora Ij, Shaw. 

441 A Sea Change *25 

George Bernard Shaw. 

937 Cashel Byron’s Profes- 
sion *25 

S. Shelley. 

1494 The Nautz Family *25 

Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley 

1376 Fi’aukenstein *25 

J. H. ShorthoHse. 

Ill The Little School-master 

Mark *25 

1148 The Countess Eve *25 

1565 Sir Percival *25 

William Sime. 

429 Boulderstone ; or, New 
Men and Old Popula- 
tions *25 

580 The Red Route *25 

597 Ilaco the Dreamer *25 

649 Cradle and Spade *25 

George 11. Sims. 

816 Rogues and Vagabonds. *25 

1535 Tales of To-day. *25 

1767 Dramas of Life *25 

1798 Mary Jane's Memoirs. . .*25 

J. B. SimpHon. 

1472 Haunted Hearts *25 

A. 1*. Sinnett. 

^ Karma .. *25 


Hawley Smart. 

348 From Post to Finish. A 

Racing Rcmauce 25 

367 Tie and Trick *25 

550 Struck Down *25 

847 Bad to Beat...., *25 

92n The Outsider *25 

1225 The Last Coup *^ 

1317 Without Love or Licence*25 

1342 Saddle and Sabre *25 

1659 A Black Business *25 

17.58 A False Start *25 

1784 The Pride of the Paddoek*25 

1822 Cleverly Won *25 

1878 Lightly Lost *25 

1905 A Family Failing *25 

1926 Breezie l.angton *25 

1939 Courtship in 1720 and 1860*25 

Frank E. Smedley. 

333 Frank Fairlegli ; or. 
Scenes from the Life of 


a Private Pupil *25 

562 Lewis Arundel: or, The 
Railroad of Life *25 

Samuel Smiles. 

2009 Self-Help *25 

A. Smith. 

1661 A Summer in Skye *25 

.T. Gregory Smith. 

1437 Selma *25 

T. W. Speight, 

150 For Himself Alone *25 

6.53 A Barren Title *25 


1375 The Sandy croft Mystery *25 

Emily Spender. 

735 Until the Day Breaks... *25 

Stepiiiak and Win. Westall. 

1515 The Blind Musician *25 

1943 In Two Moods *25 

Robert Louis Stevenson . 

686 Strange Case of Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. . . 25 

704 Prince Otto 25 

832 Kidnapped 25 

8.55 Tlie Dynamiter *25 

8.56 New Arabian Nights ... . 25 

^8 Treasure Island 25 

889 An Inland Voyage 26 

940 The Merry Men, and 

Other Tales and Fables 25 
1051 The IMisad ventures of 

John Nicholson 25 

1110 The Silverado Squatters 25 
1228 The Master of Ballantrae 25 

St. Pierre. 

1424 Paul and Virginia *35 


g8 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


Hesba Stretton. 

1370 Bede’s Charity .*25 

E.sme Stuart. 

1891 Kestell of Greystone . . . .*25 
1551 The Vicomte’s Bride *25 

Julian Sturgis. 

405 My Friends and I. Edited 

by Julian Sturgis *25 

694 John Maidment *25 

1698 Dick’s Wandering *25 

1717 Comedy of a Country 
House *25 

Eugene Sue. 

f70 The Wandering Jew. 1st 

}jalf 25 

270 The Wandering Jew. 2d 

half 25 

271 The Mysteries of Paris. 

1st half 25 

271 The Mysteries of Paris. 

2d half 25 

Dean Swift 

1865 Gulliver’s Travels *25 

Eliza Tabor. 

1833 The Blue Ribbon *25 

Tiaiirence Ainia Tadeina. 

757 Love’s Mart 3 "r *25 

“ Tasnia.” 

1217 Uncle Piper of Piper's 
Hill. An Australian 

Novel *25 

1281 A Sydney Sovereign *25 

1304 In Her Earliest Youth . .*25 

George Taylor. 

435 Klytia: A Story of Hei- 
delberg Castle *25 

Ida Asbw'orth Taylor. 

426 Venus’s Doves *25 

9054 The City of Sarras *25 

George Temple. 

599 T-aucelot Ward, M.P *25 

642 Britta *25 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, P. 
L., D. C. L. 

C12Locksley Hall Sixty 
Years After, etc *25 

Williani M. Thackeray, 


27 Vanitv Fair 

25 

165 The History of 

Henry 

Esmond 


816 Paris Sketches.... 


414 The Newcomes. . . 



670 The Rose and the Ring. 


Illustrated *25 

1322 Adventures of Philip *25 

1324 The Virginians 25 

1330 'I'he Four Georges *25 

1392 Yellowplush Papers *25 

1482 Denis Duval *25 

1484 Catherine *25 

1486 Lovel the 4Vidower *25 

1488 Barry L^uidon *25 

1496 History of Pendennis . . . *25 

1508 Book of Snobs *25 

1522 Critical Reviews *25 

1525 Eastern Sketches *25 

1528 Fatal Boots, etc. *25 

1536 Fitzboodle Papers *25 

1.537 Roundabout Papers *25 

1538 A Legend of the Rhine. *25 
1540 Cox’s Diary *25 

Miss Thackeray. 

675 Mrs. Dymoud *25 


Author of “The 8pauish 
Brothers.” 

1243 Genevieve; or. The 
Children of Port Roj’^al. 25 

Author of “The Two Miss 


Flemings.” 

637 What’s His Offence? *26 

780 Rare Pale Margaret *25 

784 The Two Miss Flemings. .*25 
831 Pomegranate Seed *25 

Annie Thomas. 

141 She Loved Him I *25 

142 Jenifer *25 

565 No Mediupi 

1219 That Other Woman *^ 

1294 Love’s a Tyrant *25 

1299 The Kilburns *^ 

1483 The Love of a Lady *25 

1679 The Sloane Square Scan- 
dal *25 

1147 Le Beau Sabreur *25 

1851 The Roll of Honor *25 

1873 Kate Valliant *25 

1986 Called to Account *25 

Bertha Thomas^ 

389 Ichabod. A Portrait *25 

960 Elizabeth’s Fortune *25 


1447 The House on the Scar. .*25 
1707 Famous or Infamous?. ..*26 

Judge D. P. Thompson. 

1414 The Green Mountain 


Boj’s *25 

Theodore Tilton. 

1450 Tempest Tossed *26 

Leon de Tinseaii. 


1820 The Chaplain’s Secret. . .*96 


POCKET EDITION. 


29 


Count Liyof Tolstoi. 

1066 My Husband and I *25 

1069 Polikouchka *25 

1071 The Death of Ivan Iliitch*25 

1073 Two Generations *25 

1090 Tiie Cossacks *^ 

1108 Sebastopol *25 

1639 Work While Ye Have the 

Ligrht *25 

1835 The Fruits of Enlighten- 
ment *25 

A, h. G. Bosboom-Toussnint 

803 Major Frank *25 

Tribune Prize Stories. 

1665 The Story of Our Mess.. *25 
1668 The Three Bummers *25 

Adolphus Trollope. 

115 Diamond Cut Diamond. *25 
Autliony Trollope. 


32 The Land Leaguers *25 

93 Anthony Trollope’s Au- 
tobiography *25 

147 Rachel Ray *25 

200 An Old Man’s Love *25 

531 The Prime Minister *25 

621 The Warden *25 

622 Harry Heathcote of 

Gangoil *25 

667 The Golden Lion of 

Granpere *25 

700 Ralpli the Heir *25 

775 The Three Clerks *25 

1476 Mr. Scarborough’s Fam- 
ily *25 

1542 Life of Thackeray *25 

Tracy Tiirnerelli. 

1371 A Russian Princess *25 

Sarah Tytler. 

160 Her Gentle Deeds *25 

1831 Buried Diamonds *25 


J. Van Lennep. 

1621 The Count of Talavera. .*25 

Count Paul Vasili. 

505 The Society of London. .*25 

Sophie E. F. Veitcli. 

1280 The Dean’s Daughter. ... *25 
Margaret Veley. 

998 Mitchelhurst Place *25 

5^ “ For Percival ” *25 

Jules Verne. 

87 Dick Sand; or, A Cap- 
tain at Fifteen 25 

109 20,000 Leagues Under the 
Seas 25 


368 The Southern Star; or, 
the Diamond Land . ... *25 
395 The Archipelago on Fire*:^ 
578 Mathias Saudorf. Illus- 
trated *25 

659 The Waif of the “Cyn- 
thia” *25 

751 Great Voyages and Great 

Navigators 25 

m Ticket No. “9672.” *26 

976 RoburtheConqueror;or, 

A Trip Round the World 
in a Flying Machine. . *25 
1011 Texar’s Vengeance; or. 
North Versus South. ... 25 
1020 Michael Strogoff; or. 
The Courier of the Czar 25 
1050 The Tour of the World 
in 80 Days 25 

1152 From the Earth to the 

Moon. Illustrated 26 

1153 Round the Moon. Illus- 

trated 26 

1157 A Two Years’ Vacation. 

Illustrated *25 

1168 The Flight to France; or, 
the Memoirs of a Dra- 
goon *25 

1238 The Mysterious Island. 

Illustrated *25 

1263 A Family Without a 

Name *25 

1422 Eight Hundred Leagues 
on the Amazon; or, The 

Cr 5 'ptogram 25 

1422 The Jangada; or. Eight 
Hundred Leagues on 

the Amazon. 25 

2078 The Special Correspond- 
ent 26 

liinda Villari. 

2046 In Change Unchanged... *25 

Henry i^cott Vince* 

347 As Avon Flows *25 

Carl Vosmaer* 

253 The Amazon *25 

L.B. Walford. 

241 The Baby’sGrandmother*25 
256 Mr. Smith : A Part of 

His Life *25 

258 Cousins. *^ 

658 The History of a Week.. *25 
1578 Troublesome Daughters.*^ 
1615 The Havoc of a Smile... *25 

1780 A Mere Child *^ 

1932 The Mischief of Monica. *25 
1944 A Pinch of Experience. .*25 

1979 Dick Netherby *^ 

1982 A Sage of Sixteen *26 

1987 Her Oreat Idei^ *25 


30 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY, 


2006 A Stiff-Necked Genera- 


tion *25 

*037 Pauline *25 


Geoi’ce Walker. 

1397 The Three Spaniards — *25 

Horace Walpole. 

770 The Castle of Otranto. . .*25 

Mrs. Humphry Ward. 


369 Miss Bretherton *25 

1116 Robert Elsmere .25 


F. Warden. 

192 At the World’s Mercy. . .*25 
248 The House on the Marsh 25 
286 Deldee; or, The Iron 

Hand *25 

482 A Vagrant Wife *25 

556 A Prince of Darkness. . . 25 

820 Doris’s Fortune *25 

1037 Scheherazade : A Lon- 
don Night’s Entertain- 
ment *25 

1087 A Woman’s Face; or, A 

Lakeland ]\Iystery *25 

1156 A Witch of the Hills *25 

1178 St. Cuthbert’s Tower — *25 
1193 The Fog Princes. A 
Romance of The Dark 

IMetropolis *25 

1272 Nurse Revel’s Mistake... *25 

1623 City and Suburban *25 

1729 Missing: A Young Girl. .*25 

1855 Pretty Miss Smith *25 

1906 Those W’^esterton Girls.. *25 
1938 Highest References *25 

Willinni Ware. 

709 Zenobia; or. The Fall of 

Palmyra *25 

760 Aurelian; or, Rome in the 
Third Century *25 

Samuel Warren. 

406 The Merchant’s Clerk. . .*25 
1142 Ten Thousand a Year. 

Parti 25 

1142 Ten Thousand a Year. 

Part II 25 

1142 Ten Thousand a Year. 

Part III 25 

Author of “ Wedded Hands’* 

628 Wedded Hands *25 

968 Blossom and Fruit; or, 
Madame’s Ward *25 

E. Werner. 

827 Raymond’s Atonement.. *25 

540 At a High Price *25 

1067 Saint Michael 25 

1069 Homo Sounds *25 


1154 A Judgment of God *35 

1181 The Fairy of the Alps. .. 25 
1716 Vineta *25 

2073 “ Good Luck ;” or. Suc- 
cess, and How He Won 

It 25 

2074 What the Spring Brought 25 

2080 At the Altar 25 

William Westall. 

1061 A Queer Race *25 

1159 Mr. Fortescue: An Ande- 
an Romance *25 

1161 Red Ryvington *25 

1163 The Phantom City: A 

Volcanic Romance *25 

1431 Strange Crimes *25 

1515 The Blind Musician. By 
William Westall and 

Sergius Stepniak *25 

1943 In Two Moods *25 

Stanley J. Weyman. 

2085 The Man in Black 25 

2086 The House of the Wolf. 25 

Beatrice Whitby. 

1264 The Awakening of Mary 

Fenwick *25 

1897 A Matter of Skill *25 

Mrs. W hi teller. 

1497 Widow Bedott Papers. . .*25 

Violet Whyte. 

956 Her Johnnie *25 

G. J. White-3Ielville. 

409 Roy’s Wife *25 

451 Market Harborough, and 
Inside the Bar *25 

M. G. Wightwick. 

113 Mrs. Carr’s Companion. *26 

Oscar Wilde. 

2143 The Picture of Dorian 

Gray 25 

2144 Poems by Oscar Wilde. . 25 

£. S. Williamson. 

984 Her Own Sister *25 

John Strange Winter. 

492 Booties’ Baby; or, Mig- 

non. Illustrated 25 

600 Houp-La. Illustrated . .*26 
638 In Quarters with the 
25th (The Black Horse) 

Dragoons *36 

688 A Man of Honor. IlluB- 
trated *36 


POCKET EDITION. 


31 


746 Cavalry Life; or. Sket- 
ches and Stories in Bar- 
racks and Out *25 

813 Army Society. Life in a 

Garrison Town *25 

818 Pluck *25 

876 Migrnon’s Secret 25 

966 A Siege Baby and Child- 
hood’s Memories *25 

971 Garrison Gossip: Gath- 
ered in Blankhampton.*25 

1032 Mignon’s Husband *25 

1039 Driver Dallas *25 

1079 Beautiful Jim: of the 
Blankshire Regiment. . .*25 

1117 Princess Sarah *25 

1121 Booties’ Children *25 

1158 My Poor Dick *25 

1171 Sophy Carmine *25 

1202 Harvest *25 

1223 A Little Fool *25 

1244 Buttons *25 

1246 Mrs. Bob 25 

130.3 Dinna Forget *25 

1667 He Went for a Soldier. .*25 
1721 The Other Man’s Wife. .*25 

1776 Regimental Legends *25 

1877 Good Bye *25 

1981 Lumley the Painter *25 

1951 In Luck’s Way *25 

H. A. Wise, U. S. N. 

8129 Captain Brand, of the 
Schooner “Centipede” 25 

Mrs* Henry Wood. 

8 East Lynne 25 

255 The Mystery 25 

277 The Surgeon’s Daughters*25 

508 The Unholy Wish 25 

S13 Helen Whitney’s Wed- 
ding, and Other Tales. *25 

614 The Mystery of Jessy 
Page, and Other Tales. *25 

610 The Story of Dorothy 
Grape, and Other Tales*25 

1001 Lady Adelaide’s Oath; 
or, The Castle's Heir. . . 25 

1021 The Heir to Ashley, and 

The Red-Court Farm.. .*25 


1027 A Life’s Secret 25 

1042 Lady Grace 25 

1235 The Lost Bank Note, and 
Moat-Grange *25 

1866 Danesbury House *26 


H. F. Wood. 

1107 The Passenger from 

Scotland Yard *25 

1595 The Night of the Third 

Ult *25 

1787 The House of Halli well . . *^ 

Margaret L. Woods. 

1983 A Village Tragedy *26 

Katharine Wylde* 

2035 A Dreamer *25 

2038 An Ill-Regulated Mind..*;^ 

Ediiiiind Yates. 

1708 Running the Gauntlet. ..*26 

1709 Broken to Harness *25 

Charlotte M. Yongo, 

247 The Armourer's Pren- 
tices *25 

275 The Three Brides *25 

535 Henrietta’s Wish; or, 

Domineering *25 

563 The Two Sides of the 

Shield *25 

640 Nuttie’s Father 25 

665 The Dove in the Eagle’s 

Nest *25 

666 My Young Alcides: A 

Faded Photograph *25 

739 The Caged Lion *25 

742 Love and Life 25 

783 ■ Chantry House *25 

790 The Chaplet of Pearls; 
or, The White and Black 

Ribaumont *25 

800 Hopes and Fears; or. 
Scenes from the Life of 
a Spinster *25 

887 A Modern Telemachus. .*25 
1024 Under the Storm; or. 
Steadfast's Charge. . ..*25 

11.33 Our New Mistress *25 

1200 Beechcroft at Rockstoue*26 

A. Curtis Yorke. 

1409 The Mystery of Bel- 


grave Square *25 

Ernest Young. 

1682 Barbara’s Rival *96 

1696 A Woman’s Honor *96 


82 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


Miscellaneous. 


182 The Millionaire *25 

198 A Husband’s Story *25 


274 Alice, Grand Duchess of 
Hesse, Princess of Great 
Britain and Ireland. 
Biopraph ical Sketch 

and Letters *25 

[285 The Gambler's Wife 25 

^9 John Bull’s Neighbor in 
Her True Light. A 

“ Brutal Saxon ” *25 

335 The White Witch *25 

443 The Bachelor of the Al- 
bany *25 

491 Society in London. A 

Foreign Resident *25 

612 The Waters of Hercules.*25 
1438 Margaret and Her 
Bridesmaids *25 


1444 Queen of the County *86 

1574 The Arabian Nights’ 

Entertainments *25 

1598 How He Reached the 
White House ; or, a Fa- 
mous Victory *26 

1685 The Wonderful Advent- 
ures of Phra the Phoeni- 
cian. Retold by Edwin 

Lester Arnold *26 

1916 King Solomon’s Treas- 
ure. By the Author of 

“He” *25 

2034 A Chelsea Householder. .*25 

2048 Miss Bayle's Romance 

A Story of To-day *25 

2049 Yesterday. An Ameri- 

can Novel *26 


The foregoing works are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be 
sent to any address, postage free, on receipt of the price, 25 cents 
•ach, by the publisher. Address 


GEORGE MUNBO’S SONS, Publishers, 

(P. O. Box 1781.) 17 to 27 Vaxdewater 8t. New York. 


GEORGE MCKRO’S SONS’ PUBLICA'nONS. 1 


THE 

LIBRAIU of jlMEeiCAH_ A0TH0[[S. 

Embracing: Cepyrigrht Novels by the Most Popular 
Writers of American Fiction. 


ISSUED (JUAETERLY. PRICE 25 CENTS EACH. 


These books are well printed in clear, bold, handsome t3rpe, with 
beautiful lithographed covers, and sewed in the back, so that each 


book will open flat. 

Magdalen Barrett. 

40 The Banker's Daughter... 2b 

Hannah Blomgrtm. 

63 The Depth of Love; »'r, A 
Mother’s Sacrifice. 25 


Mrs. Mary E. Bry.^n. 

1 My Own Sin 25 

13 Uncle Ned’s White Child.. 25 

85 Manch 25 

^ Ruth the Outcast 25 

67 The Fugitive Bride. (The 

Bayou Bride) ... 25 

68 Kildee; or, The Sphinx of 

the Red House 25 

62 His Lfgal Wife 25 

68 Nan Haggard, the Heiress 
of Dead Hopes Mine... 26 

Christine Carlton. 

90 Muriel ; or, Because of His 
Love for Her 25 

Mrs. E. Burke Collins. 

81 Sold for Gold 25 

88 Lillian’s Vow ; or, the Mys- 
tery of Rauleigh House. 25 

Lncy Randall Comfort. 

12 Ida Chaloner’s Heart 25 

17 Vendetta; or. The South- 
ern Heiress 25 

19 Married for Money 25 

23 Love and Jealousy 25 

25 The Belle of Saratoga. ... 25 

88 Eve, the Factory Girl 25 

83 Love at Saratoga 25 

86 Wild and Willful; or, To 

the Bitter End 25 

89 Lottie and Victorine; or. 

Working Their Own 

Way..-. 83 


Jean Corey* 

60 A Heart of Fire 96 

T. C. De Leon. 

2 The Rock or the Rye, 
(Comic) 26 


Dora Delmar* 

53 Cast Upon His Care 

54 The Secret of Estcourt. . . . 

59 A Tempting Offer 

61 Answered in Jest 

May Agnes Fleming. 
34 Estella’s Husband; or. 
Thrice Lost, Thrice Won 

41 The Baronet’s Bride 

48 The Unseen Bridegroom; 
or. Wedded for a Week. 

Margaret Lee. 

6 Marriage 

7 Lizzie Adriance 

55 May Blossom 

Laura Jean Libbey. 

4 Daisy Brooks 

6 The Heiress of Cameron 
Hall 

8 Madolin Rivers 

10 Leonie Locke; or, Tlie Ro- 

mance of a Beautiful 
New York Working- 
Girl 

11 Junie’s Love-Test 

14 All for Love of a Fair 

Face; or, A Broken Be- 
trothal 

15 A Struggle for a Heart; or, 

Crystabel’s Fatal Love. 

16 Little Rosebud’s Lovers; 

or, A Cruel Revenge. .. 
46 Beautiful lone’s Lover..** 




i GEORGE MtTNRO’S SONS PUBLICATIONS. 


Adna H. Ijisrhtner. 

8 Shadow and Sunshine. . . 25 

Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller. 


18 Laurel Vane ; or, the Girls’ 

Conspiracy 25 

21 Sworn to Silence; or, Aline 

Rodney’s Secret 25 

87 Lady Gay’s Pride ; or. The 

Miser’s Treasure 25 

42 Lancaster’s Choice 25 

Tiger-Lily; or. The Woman 
Who Came Between. . . 25 
44 The Pearl and the Ruby.. . 25 
46 Eric Braddon's Love ..... 25 

49 Little Sweetheart 25 

50 Flower and Jewel 25 

61 Little Nobody 25 

“M. Qnad.»» 

66 Under Five Lakes 25 


Charlotte M. Stanley. 

27 Her Second Choice 25 

29 His Country Cousin 25 

32 A Misplaced Love; or. The 

Rector’s Daughter 26 

47 Frou-Frou. From the 
French of MM. Meilhac 
and Halevy 25 

Elizabeth Stiles* 

35 The Little Light -House 
Lass; or, the World 
Well Lost 25 

Marie Walsh. 

9 Saints and Sinners ; or. The 
Minister’s Daughter. ... 25 
24 Hazel Kirke 25 

Miscellaneous. 

22 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. 

A Sequel to “ The Count 
of Monto-Cristo ” 25 


The foregoing books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be 
sent by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of 25 cents per copy, or 
we will send nine books for two dollars. Address 


Munro’s Publishing House, 

O. Bots 2981.) 17 to 27 Vandewater St., New Yodk 


TtlE LAUREL LIBRARY. 


8 


The Laurel Library. 

OUR NEW SERIES 

OF 

AMEEIOAN COPYEIGHT NOVELS. 


Issued Quarterly. Price 25 Cents Eaclu 


These books are well printed In clear, bold, handsome type, with 
beautiful lithographed covers, and sewed in the back, so that each 
book will open flat. 


Mrs. Mary E. Bryan. 

18 Wild Work 25 

Lucy Kandall Comfort. 

10 Claire’s Love-Life. A Tale 
of English Society 25 

Dora Delmar. 

14 Had She Foreseen 1 25 

16 Mabel and May 25 

May Agnes Fleming. 

7 The Heiress of Glen Gower 25 

12 Magdalen’s Vow 25 

22 Who Wins? 25 

Charles Garvice. 

8 Paid For 1 25 

4 Elaine 25 

6 On Love’s Altar 25 


11 Better Than Life 

17 Married at Sight 

18 Once in a Life 

19 A Life’s Mistake 

20 She Loved Him 

21 The Marquis 

Wenona Gilman. 

2 Hearts and Lives 

5 Blind Dan’s Daughter 

8 Val the Tomboy 

9 My Little Princess 

Gay Parker. 

1 An Unwilling Bride; or, 
The Ciu’se of Rosser.... 2b 

Major Alfred Rochefort* 
16 Katrine, the Pride of Glen 
Aire... 2b 


The foregoing books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be 
sent by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of 25 cents per copy, or 
we will send nine books for two dollars. Address 


CiiEOROi: NIUIVRO^S 

ICunro’s Publishing House, 

P. O. Boat 8J81.) 17 to 27 Vaadewater St., New Yocb* 




4 GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS’ PUBLICATIONS, 


TUE 

Boys’ Dash^ay SERm 

Issued Quarterly. Price 10 Cents Each. 


These books are of a size convenient for the pocket, and are 
issued with beautiful lithographed covers. 


Albert W. Aiken. 

8 Injun Paul ; or, The Prairie 


Cat. (Illustrated) 10 

Gnstaire Aimard. 

19 The Adventurers 10 

SO The Pearl of the Andes. . . 10 

21 The Trail-Hunter 10 

22 The Pirates of the Prairies 10 
28 The Trapper’s Daughter. . 10 

24 The Tiger-Slayer 10 

21 The Gold-Seekers 10 

26 The Indian Chief 10 

27 The Red Track 10 

28 The Guide of the Desert. . 10 

29 The Insurgent Chief 10 

80 The Flying Horseman 10 

81 The Border Rifles 10 

32 The Freebooters 10 

83 The White Scalper 10 

84 The Missouri Outlaws 10 

85 The Prairie Flower 10 

86 The Indian Scout 10 

87 The Bee-Hunter 10 

88 Stoneheart 10 

89 The Rebel Chief 10 

40 The Last of the Aucas 10 

41 The Buccaneer Chief 10 

42 The Queen of the Savan- 

nah 10 

43 The Red River Half-Breed 10 

44 The Treasure of Pearls. . . 10 

45 The Trappers of Arkansas 10 

46 Stronghand 10 

47 The Smuggler Hero 10 

Capt. li. C. Carleton. 

1 The Man of Death 10 

8 Eagle Eyes, the Scout 10 


4 The Trapper’s Retreat.... 10 
7 The Wild Man of the 


Woods. (Illustrated)... 10 

Captain Clewline. 

14 The Boy Whalers 10 

48 The Island Demon 10 

Halsey Pago. 

2 Dashaway Charley. (Illus- 
trated) 10 

5 Dash away Charley’s Sec- 

ond Term at Ranleigh. 
(Illustrated) 10 

6 Dashaway Charley’s Last 

Term at Ranleigh. (Il- 
lustrated) 10 

9 Dashaw'a}’ Charley on the 

•Plains. (Illustrated) 10 

10 The Young Pioneers. (Il- 
lustrated) 10 

Samnel W. Pearce. 

12 The Boy Yachtsman. (Il- 

lustrated) 10 

W. E. Westlake. 

13 Doings at School and at 

Sea. (Illustrated) 10 

15 The Boys and Girls of Sil- 

ver Creek Academy 10 

16 Fun, Love, and Adventure 

on Land and Water 10 

17 Among the Reds; or, Fred 

and Bert Beyond the 
Rocky Mountains 10 

18 The Red Star 10 


Miscellaneous. 

11 The Yankee Champion. . . . 1# 


The foregoing books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be 
flwt by roaiK postage prepaid, on receipt of the price, by the pub* 
AiStiers* Adciress 

OEOROK SONS, 

Hunro’s Publiskinf? House, 

<P. O. Box 2781.) 17 to 27 Vandewater St., New 


THE OLD SLEUTH LIBRARY, 


8 


THE OLD SLEOTH” LIB8ARY. 

A Series op the Most Thrilling Detective Stories Ever Pdblishr©, 

Issued Quarterly. Price 5 Cents Each. 


1 Old Sleuth, the Detective.. 5 

2 The King of the Detectives. 5 

8 Old Sleuth’s Triumph 5 

4 Under a Million Disguises.. 5 
6 Night Scenes in New York. 5 

6 Old Electricity, the Light- 

ning Detective 5 

7 The Shadow Detective 5 

8 Red-Light Will, the River 

Detective 5 

9 Iron Burgess, the Govern- 

ment Detective 5 

10 The Brigands of New York. 5 

11 Tracked by a Ventriloquist. 5 

18 The Twin Shadowers 5 

13 The French Detective 5 

14 Billy Wayne, the St. Louis 

^tective 5 

15 The New York Detective... 5 

16 O’Neil McDarragh, the De- 

tective 5 

17 Old Sleuth in Harness 

Again 5 

18 The L^y Detective 5 

19 The Yankee Detective 5 

90 The Fastest Boy in New 

York 5 

21 Black Raven, the Georgia 

Detective 5 

22 Night-Hawk, the Mounted 

Detective 5 

28 The Gypsy Detective 5 

24 The Mysteries and Miseries 

of New York 5 

26 Old Terrible 5 

26 TheSmugglersof New York 

Bay 5 

27 Manfred, the Magic Trick 

Detective 5 

28 Mura, the Western Lady 

Detective 5 

29 Mons. A r m a n d ; or, The 

French Detective in New 
York 5 

80 Lady Kate, the Dashing Fe- 

male Detective 5 

81 Hamud. the Detective 5 

82 The Giant Detective in 

France 5 

88 The American Detective in 
Russia 5 


34 The Dutch Detective 6 

35 Old Puritan, the Old-Time 

Yankee Detective 5 

36 Manfred’s Quest 6 

37 Tom Thumb; or. The Won- 

derful Boy Detective 5 

38 Old Ironsides Abroad 5 

39 Little Black Tom ; or, The 

Adventures of a Mis- 
chievous Darky 5 

40 Old Ironsides Among the 

Cowboys 5 

41 Black Tom in Search of a 

Father; or. The Further 
Adventures of a M i s - 
chievous Darky 5 

42 Bonanza Bardie; or. The 

'I'reasure of the Rockies. 6 

43 Old Transform, the Secret 

Special Detective 5 

44 The King of the Shadowers. 6 

45 Gasparoni, the Italian De- 

46 Old Sleuth’s Luck 6 

47 The Irish Detective 5 

48 Down in a Coal Mine 5 

49 Faithful Mike, the Irish 

Hero 6 

50 Silver Tom, the Detective.. 6 

51 The Duke of New York.... 6 

52 Jack Gameway; or, A West- 

ern Boy in New York.... 6 

53 All Round New York 5 

54 Old Ironsides in New York. 5 

55 Jack Ripple and His Talk- 

ing Dog 5 

56 Billy Joyce, the Govern- 

ment Detective 5 

57 Badger and His Shadow... 5 

58 Darral, the Detective 6 

59 Old Sleuth, Badger & Co. .. 6 

60 Old Phenomenal 5 

61 A Golden Curse 6 

62 The Mysterious Murder. ... 6 

63 Monte-Cristo Ben 8 

64 The Bowery Detective 5 

65 The Boy Detective 5 

66 Detective Thrash .5 

67 Ebeon, the Detective 6 

68 Old Ironsides at His Best . 5 

69 Archie the Wonder 5 


Jfce foregoing books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be 
sent by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of 6 cents each, or 5 for 
26 cents, by the publishers. Address 


George Munro’s Sons, Munro’s Publishing House, 


(P, O. Box 2781.) 17 to 27 Vandewo.ter St., New York* 


i GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS’ PUBLICATIONS. 


ATT£AOTIVE HAND-BOOKS. 


The Art of Housekeeping. By 
Mrs. Mary Stuart Smith.. 25 


The New York Fashion Bazar 
Mc^'^1 Letter-Writer and 
Lovers' Oracle 25 

The New York Fashion Bazar 
Book of the Toilet 25 


The New York Fashion Bazar 
Book of Etiquette 25 

Munro’s Star Recitations. 
Compiled and Edited by 
Mrs. Mary E. Bryan 25 

Good Form: A Book ^ Every 
Day Etiquette. B^ Mrs. 
Armstrong SS 


MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS. 


Juliet Corson’s New F^pnily 
Cook Book. By MisS Ju- 
liet Corson $1.00 

New Tabernacle Sermons. 

By the Rev. T. De Witt 
Talmage $1.00 

Alice's Adventures in Won- 
derland. By Lewis Car- 
roll 50 

Through the Looking-Glass 
and What Alice Found 
There. By Lewis Carroll. 50 

The Shadow Detective. By 
“Old Sleuth” 50 


Blood is Thicker than Water : 

A Few Days Among Our 
Southern Brethren. By 
Henry M. Field, D.D 25 


A Practical Guide to the Ac- 
quisition of the Spanish 
Language. By Lucie n 
Oudin, A.M 25 

Cutting-Out and Dressmak- 
ing. From the French of 
Mile. E. Grand’homme. .. 25 

Confessions of an Imp. By 
“Old Sleuth” 25 

Hunters’ Yarns. A Collection 
of Wild and Amusing Ad- 
ventures 25 


Munro’s French Series. No. 

1— An Elementary Gram- 
mar of the French Lan- 
guage. By lUion Costel- 
lano 25 

Munro’s French Series. Nos. 

2 and 3— Practical Guides 
to the French Language. 

By Lucien Oudin, A M... 25 

Munro’s German Series. A 
Method of Learning Ger- 
man on a New and Easy 
Plan. By Edward Cha- 
mier. Two volumes— each 25 

Munro’s Dialogues and Speakers. 
No. 1— The Funny Fel- 
low’s Dialogues 10 

No. 2— The Clemence and 

Donkey Dialogues 10 

No. 3 — Mrs. Smith’s Board- 
ers’ Dialogues 10 

No. 4— Schoolboys’ Comic 

Dialogues 10 

No. 1— Vot I Know ’Bout 
Gruel Societies Speaker 10 
No. 2— The John B. Go-off 

Comic Speaker 10 

No. 3— My Boy Vilhelm’s 
Speaker 10 

Kitchen Lessons for Young 
Housekeepers. By Annie 
H. Jerome 10 

Letter-Writing Made Easy. . , 10 


The foregoing books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be 
gent by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price, by the pub- 
lishers. Address 


OEORGE NIIJIVRO’S SOIVS, 

Munro’s Publishing Houae, 

CP. O. Box 2SB1.) 17 to 27 Vandewater New York* 


DIE DEUTSCHE LIBBARY. T 






®iefe populore 9^ooet(en finb bic beften in ber beuticbcn 
@bra(t)c. bicfe grofee UJiaffc con y^iooeUen eiue iiiiber* 

falfcbte (Srbidjtung iiub eine ftarte Uuternd)t«gett)Qlt ber 
S)enticben ber ^ereinigteu ©tooteu ifl, unb etnc grofee ^ilfe 
fiir ^merifaner, nielcbe bic beutfcbe 0prQ(^e ftubiren, fonn 
yiiemaub leugnen." 


yiad^folgenbe SHJerfe finD in ber ,/2)eutfd)en Sibrar^" eridbienen: 

Job. von Dewall. 


liCon Alexandrowitsch. 


60 Bewegte Zeiten 10 

B. Auerbach. 

23 Barfiissele 10 

30 Ri’igitta 10 

75 Das Landhaus am Rhein. 

Erste Halfte 20 

75 Das Landhaus am Rhein. 

Zweite Halfte.. 20 

102 Spinos^ 20 

114 SchwaVzw alder Dorfge- 
schichten. Erste Halfte 20 
114 Schwarzwalder Dorfge- 
schichten. Zweite 
Halfte 20 

Victor Bluethgen. 

127 Ein Friedensstorer 20 

Ida Boy-Ed. 

224 Nicht im Geleise, Roman. 20 
J. von Brun-Barnow. 

67 Falsche Wege 10 

Briisehaver. 

142 BartolomSus 10 

B. Byr. 

127 Der heimliche Gast 20 

F. Dahn. 

101 Ein Kampf um Rom. 

Erste Halfte 20 

101 Ein Kampf um Rom. 

Zweite Halfte... 20 

150 Felicitas, Histor. Roman. 10 
171 Die Kreuzfahrer, Roman. 20 

Alphonse Daudet. 

140 Numa Roumestan 20 

C. H. V. Dedenroth. 

837 Eine Hof-Intrigue 10 

C. Detlef. 

117 Auf Capri 10 


112 Der Ulan 10 

188 Strandgut. Erste Halfte. 20 
188 Strandgut. Zweite HS,lfte. 20 
217 Mandver- u. Kriegsbilder. 10 
241 Die Erbtante, Roman 20 

A. Doin. 

87 Der Erbe von Mortella. . . 20 
221 Das Geiger-Evchen, Ro- 


man 20 

Alexander Dnmas. 

251 Die drei Musketiere. 
Erster Theil 20 

251 Die drei Musketiere. 

Zweiter Theil 20 

252 Zwanzig Jahre nachher. 

Erster Theil 20 

252 Zwanzig Jahre nachher. 

Zweiter Theil 20 

252 Zwanzig Jahre nachher. 

Dritter Theil 20 

253 Der Graf von Bragelonne. 

Erster Theil 20 

253 Der Graf von Bragelonne. 

Zweiter Theil 20 

254 Zehn Jahre nachher. Er- 

ster Theil 20 

251 Zehn Jahre nachher. 
Zweiter Theil 20 

Georg Ebers. 

1 Der Kaiser 20 

17 Eine Frago. 10 

77 Die Frau Biirgermeiste- 

rin 20 

93 Uarda 20 

144 Ein Wort, Neuer Roman. 20 

169 Serapis, Roman 20 

189 Homo sum 20 


190 Eine AegyptischeKdnigs- 
tochter. Erste Hklfte.. 20 
190 Eine AegyptischeKdnigs- 
toohter. Zweite Halfte. 20 
192 Die Nilbraut. Erste Halfte 20 


6 OEORGE MTJNliO S SONS PCBLIOATIONJfc 


109 Die Nilbraut. Z w e i t e 

Halfte 90 

280 Die Schwestern, Roman. . 90 
211 Die Gred, Roman. Erste 

Haifte 20 

til Die Gred, Roman. Zweite 

Halfte 20 

298 Josua, Erzghlung aus bib- 
lischerZeit 20 

Ernst Eckstein. 

151 Die Claudier, Roman.... 20 
275 Das Vermachtniss. Erste 

Halfte 20 

176 DasVermachtniss. Zweite 

Halfte 20 

186 Violanta, Rom.an 20 

904 Salvatore 20 

215 Nero. Erste Halfte 20 

815 Nero. Zweite Halfte.... 20 
220 Der Referendar, Novelle. 10 
226 Camilla, Roman 20 

Emile Erhard. 

938 Qrafln Ruth 20 

Nataly von Eschstrnth. 

960 Oanseliesel 20 

E. Falk. 

S8 Um elD Herz 10 

E. Fels. 

40 Die weisse Frau von Grei- 

fenstein 20 

168 Die Rose von Delhi. Erste 

Halfte 20 

168 Die Rose von Delhi. 
Zweite Halfte 20 

Charlotte Fielt. 

03 Schloss Griinwald 10 

Karl E. Franzos. 

71 Moschko von Parma 10 

79 Ein Kampf urn's Recht. . 20 
173 Die Reise nach dem 

Schicksal 10 

982 Der Frasident 20 

K. Frenzel. 

162 Nach derersten Liebe... 20 

198 Frau Venus 20 

Gustav Freytag. 

16 Ingo und Ingralmn 20 

94 Das Nest der ZaunkSnige 20 
86 Die Briider vom deut- 

schen Hause 20 

48 Maskus Kbnig 20 

47 Die Geschwister 20 

09 Aus einer kleinen Stadt.. 20 
§2 Soil und Haben. Erste 

Halfte 20 

IB Soil und Habea Zweite 
EUUfto Be 


907 Die verlorene Hand- 
schrift. Erste Halfte.. 90 
207 Die verlorene Hand- 
schrift. Zweite Halfte. 90 
223 Der Kronprinz und die 


deutscheKaiserkrone.. K 

F. Gerstaecker. 

87 Der Wilddieb 10 

156 Die Colonie 20 

160 Eine Mutter 90 

A. Godin. 

122 Mutter und Sohn. 10 

R. von Gottschall. 

90 Das Fraulein von St. 
Amaranthe . . . 10 

F. W. Hacklaender. 

199 EineViertelstunde Vater. 10 

R. E. Hahn. 

128 SchOne Frauen JO 

R. Hammerling. 

99 Aspasia 20 

E. Hartner. 

118 Severa BO 

With. Banff. 

137 Die Beitlerin vom Pont 
des Arts und Das ^d 
des Kaisers 10 

H. Heiberg. 

234 Ein Mann 20 

W. Heimbnrg. 

147 Ihr einziger Bruder 10 

154 Im Banne der Musen..... 10 

193 Die Andere 20 

194 Ein armes Madchen BO 

196 Kloster Wendhusen 90 

201 Herzenskrisen, Roman... 20 
205 Lumpenmiillers Lieschen 20 
210 Aus dem Leben meiner 

alten Freundin 90 

212 Trudchens Heirath. ^ 

218 Lore von Tollen 20 

239 Eine undedeutende Fteu. BO 
F. Henkel. 


167 Die Herrin von Ibichstein. BO 
Lncian Herbert* 

64 Zwei Kreuzherren 90 

96 Deutsch und Slavisch.... 10 

Paul Heyse. 

18 Im Paradiese BO 

22 Kinder der Wel^ Erato 

Halfte ....20 

92 Kinder der Welt. Zw^te 

Haifte BO 

186 Tgo»ihadour-Noitnitok 10 


DIE DEUTSCHE LIBRAKY. 


£ 


145 Novellen 10 

184 Hiinmlische u. irdische 

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dame 20 

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Halfte 20 

Willi, von Hillern. 

67 Die Geyer- Wally 10 

78 Aus eigener Kraft 20 

119 Ein Arzt der Seele 20 

161 Friedhofsblume 10 

11. llopfcn. 

42 Mein Onkel Don Juan... 20 
Helene von Hiielsen. 

149 Nemesis 10 

Henrik Ibsen. 

228 Gesammelte Werke. 

Erster Band 20 

228 Gesam m elte Werke. 

Zweiter Band 20 

228 Gesam rn elte Werke. 

Dritter Band 20 

228 Gesam mel te Werke, 
Vierter Band 20 

W. Jensen. 

58 Versunkene Welten 20 

132 Qeber die Wolken 10 

M. Jokai. 

48 Der Piratenkdnig 10 

182 Was der Todtenkopf er- 

zahlt 20 

183 Der Zigeunerbaron 10 

222 Die Gotterburg 20 

235 Nach zehn Jahren, Ro- 
man 20 

246 Die Komddianten des Le- 
bens 20 


E. Juncker. 

247 Sckleier der Maja, Roman 20 
Stefanie Keyser. 

139 Der Krieg um die Haube. 10 

Graefin M. Keyserling. 

34 Die Sturmhexe 10 

H. Koehler. 

920 In geistiger Irre, Roman. 20 
S. Kohn. 

109 Die silberne Hochzeit — 10 
£. A. Koenig. 

6 Die Hand der Nemesis. . , 20 
29 Auf der Bahn des Ver- 
brecbeus 20 


35 Das Kind Bajasso’s 20 

45 Das grosse Loos 20 

51 Um Ehre und Leben 20 

60 Eine Million 20 

72 Scliuld nnd Siihne 20 

89 Der goldene Schatz aus 
d e m dreissigjahrigen 

Krieg 20 

245 Ein Spiel des Zufalls, Ro- 
man 20 

Leopold Koinpert. 

152 Eine Verlorene 10 

H. von Liaukenau. 

148 Ophelia, Roman 20 

F. Lewald. 

13 Vater und Sohn 10 

82 Benvenuto 10 

1*. liiudau. 

166 Mayo, Erzahlung 10 

176 Herr und Frau Bewer 10 

219 Spitzen, Roman 20 

Kud. liiudaii. 

216 Zwei Seelen 20 

£. Marlitt. 

3 DasGeheimniss der alten 

Mamsell, Roman 10 

7 Amtmanu’s Magd 20 

12 Goldelse 20 

31 Im Scliillingshof 20 

49 Reich sgrafin Gisela 20 

66 Das Haideprinzesschen . . 20 

M Die zweite Frau 21 

86 Thiiringer Erziihlungen.. 10 

97 Im Hause des Commer- 

zien Raths 20 

178 Die Frau mit den Karfun- 

kelsteinen 20 

208 Das Eulenhaus 20 

T. Marx. 

Ill Die Erben desWahnsinns 10 
A. Meissner. 

98 Die Prinzessin von Portu- 

gal 10 

Baldiiin Moellliausen. 

141 Engelid, Novelle 10 

M. Mueller. 

157 Deutsche Liebe, Roman. 10 
W. Mueller. 

159 Debora, Roman 10 

A. Niemann. 


129 Bakchen und Thyrsostra- 
ger 20 

F. Pelzeln. 

172 Der Erbe Ton Weidenbof. 2C 


10 GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS’ PUBLICATIONS. 


E. Polko. 

130 Getrennt, Roman 

W. Raabe. 

174 Villa SchSnow, Roman. . . 


168 Die Saxoborussen. Erste 

10 Halfte 

g |168 Die Saxoborussen. Zweite 
’ ‘ Halfte 


10 


227 Am Belt, Roman 


SO 

20 

20 


M. von Reicheubaeh. 

21 Die Eichhofs 10 

9B6 Um die Ehre, Roman.... 20 

A. Reinow. 

68 Idealisten 20 


Victor von Schcfiel. 

100 Ekkehard 


Job. Sclierr. 

126 Porkeles und Porkelessa. 10 
177 Die Nihilisten 10 


Sir J. Retcliffe. 

107 Nena Sahib. ErsterBand. 20 
107 Nena Sahib. Zweiter 

Band 20 

107 Nena Sahib. Dritter 
Band 20 

Max Riuff. 

10 Das Haus Hillel 20 

106 Ftirst und Musiker 20 

Otto Roquette. 

163 Luginsland, Roman 20 

Pan liidan-Mueller. 

146 Adam Homo in Versen. . 20 

Gustav zu Putlitz. 

61 Das Frolenhaus 10 

H. Rosentbal-Bonin. 

15 Der Diamantschleifer. ... 10 
133 Das Gold des Orion 10 

S. J. R. 


116 Des CSsars Ende, Zeit- 
Itoman. auch Schluss 
von Nr. 104: ,,Der Todes- 
gruss der Legionen” 
von Gregor Samarow . . 20 


Sacber-Masoch. 

46 Zur Ehre Gottes, ein Zeit- 

gemalde 10 

197 Das Vermachtniss Kains. 

Erste Halfte 20 

197 Das Vermachtniss Kains. 
Zweite Halfte 20 

G. Samarow, 

104 Der Todesgruss der Legio- 

nen 20 

128 Das Haus des Fabrikan- 

ten 20 

U25 Die Rdmerfahrt der Epi- 
gonen. Erste HUlfte.. 20 
125 Die Rdmerfahrt der Epi- 
gonen. Zweite Halfte. 20 
134 Umden Halbmond. Erste 

Halfte 20 

134 Um den Halbmond 
Zweite Halfte 20 


M, Scbmidt* 

55 Johannisnacht 10 

O. Scbubin. 

185 Ehre, Roman 

213 Asbein 

233 Erlachhof, Roman 

^0 Boris Lensky, Roman. . . . 

242 Gloria victis!, Roman... 

243 Bravo rechtsi, Roman... 

K» Sutro-Scbiiccking. 

19 In beiden Hemispharen. . 

65 Die Erlebnisse einer 
Schutzlosen 

li. Scbnecking. 

39 Der Doppelganger 

124 Bruderflicht und Liebe. . . 

131 Alte Ketten, Roman 

155 DieSchwester 

J. Smith. 

180 Die Stieftochter 

Fr. Spielhagen. 

4 Quisisana 

41 Hans und Grete 

41 Die schdnen Amerikaner- 

rinnen 

46 Ultimo, Novelle 

56 Angela 

61 Das Skelet 

73 In Reih’ und Glied. Erste 

Halfte 

73 In Reih’ und Glied. Zweite 

Halfte 

76 Clara Vere 

94 In der zwdlften Stunde. . . 

95 Die von Hohenstein. 

Erste Halfte 

95 Die von Hohenstein. 


Zweite Halfte 

164 Uhlenhans, Roman.. 

181 An derHeilquelle.... 

F. von Stengel. 

83 Pessimisten 90 

Adolf Streckfnss. 

206 Das einsame Haus 90 


BBB B ©oS g 0^00 oo B S§oo © © 


DIE DEUTSCHE LIBRART. 


11 


C, von Sydow. 
i41 SpStsommer, Novelle. .. . lO 
Mariam Tanger* 

48 Bischof und KSnig 10 

G. Taylor. 

165 Klytia, Roman 20 

179 Jetta 20 

C. Vacano. 

14 Die Wiirger vou Paris. ... 20 

V. Valentin. 

831 Der Seelsorger 10 

Til. von Varnbueler. 

28 Buchenheim 10 

J. Verne. 

108 Von der Erde Zum Mond. 10 

105 Reise um den Mond 10 

108 Reise nach dern Mittel- 

punkte der Erde 10 

115 Reise um die Erde 10 

121 Zvvanzigtausend Meilen 

unterm Meer 20 

II. Waclienliiisen. 

20 Gelebt und gelitten 20 

27 Die junge Frau 20 

83 Der Heiduck 20 

54 Dame Orange 20 

88 Vom armen egyptischen 

Mann 10 

98 Helene 10 

136 Der Schweden Schatz.... 20 

187 Nemi, Erzahlung 10 

209 Des Heraens Golgatha, 

Roman 20 

K. Waldmneller. 

2 Die Somosierra 10 

88 Die Verlobte 20 

Ernst von Waldow. 

53 Hildegard 10 

E. Werner. 

6 Gartenlauben-Blttthen.... 20 

8 Vineta 20 

11 Gliiekauf! 10 

25 Fruhlingsboten 10 

Gesprengte Fesseln 10 


69 Am Altar. 10 

113 Um hohen Preis 20 

^3 Gebannt und erldst ^ 

^0 Ein Gottesurtheil, Roman lO 
191 Sanct Michael. Erste 

Halfte 20 

191 Sanct Michael. Zweite 

Halfte 20 

200 Heimatklang 10 

203 Der Egoist 10 

214 Die Alpenfee 20 

230 Flammenzeichen, Roman ^ 

248 Ein Held der Feder, Ro- 

man 20 

249 Freie Bahn! ^ 

M. Widdern. 

9 Auf der Riimmingsburg. 10 

80 Prinzessin Schnee 10 

94 Ebbe und Fluth 10 

Hermann Willfried. 

120 Die Livergnas 10 

A. von Wiiiterfeld. 

59 Die Wohnungssucher. ... 10 

70 Der Konig der Luft 20 

74 Geheimnisse einer klei- 

nen Stadt 10 

91 Der Fiirst von Montene- 
gro 20 

110 Das Spukehaus..... 20 

138 Modelle, Hist, Roman 20 

143 Ein gemeuchelter Dich- 
ter, Komischer Roman. 

Erste Halfe 20 

143 Ein gemeuchelter Dich- 
ter, Komischer Roman. 
Zweite Halfte 20 

F. von Witzleben-Wendel« 
stein. 

84 Die Hof dame der Erzher- 

zogin 10 

B. Young. 

85 Ein Vierteljahrhundert.. 20 

Pierre Zacoue. 

26 Zelle No. 7 2b 

li. Ziemssien. 

142 MusmaCussalin,NoveUen 10 


„2)ie ®cutfd)c ^ibrorl)" ijl bei alien B^itiindg'^aubleru 
gn b^>ben, ober ttiirb pecjen 12 (5ent8 fiir eiiifadEje 9liinimenu 
ober 25 Seeing fiir 2)oppeIinimmern, iiact) irgcnb etiicr 5lDref[c 
portofrei uerfenbet. ^ei SBeftelluiig burd) bic '43ofl bittet man 
nach ^unimern gu befteUcn. 

©eorc^e ^^unro’^ ©66ne, ©eraulcieber, 

P. O. Box 2781. 17 to 97 Street. New Torfe. 


12 GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS’ PUBLICATIONS. 


The Calumet Series. 

Issued Quarterly. Price 25 Cents Each. 

THIS SERIES OF 

FASCINATING DETECTIVE STORIES, 

by the greatest modern detective, “ Old Sleuth,” is printed in 
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i 


THE ART OF HOUSEKEEPING. 

BY MARY STUART SMITH. 

WITH HANDSOME LITHOGRAPHED COVER. 

PRICE CENTS. 

A thoroughly practical book on housekee))ing by an experienced and 
celebrated housekeeper. Mas. Smith is a ctipable aiid distinguished writer 
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most poj,)iular contributors to 'J'hic Nkw Youk and Paris Young Ladies’ Fash- 
ion Bazar, where the chapters contained in tliis work first appeared. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS: Beginning to Keep TTouse— Ordering a Household — 
Economical Housekeeping— The Kitchen— Kitchen Utensils— Tlie Panti-y — 
The Care of Food — The Dining Room— Entertaining — The Breakfast Table 
—The Dinner— Dessert— The Store Room— The Nursery — Tlie Halls and 
Stairways- -Parlor, Sitting Room, Bed Rooms— 'I'he Garret — “In my Lad3 ''s 
Chamber” — Music Room— Studio— Library— The Lighting of tlie House- 
Care of Lamps -Furniture —Screens— Ornaments— Home-made Decora- 
tions— Spring Cleaning— Carpets— Floors— Summer Changes — Preserving — 
Heat and Ventilation, etc. 


GOOD FORM: 

A BOOK OF EVERY DAY ETIQUETTE. 

BY MRS. ARMSTRONG. 

Price 25 Cents. 

No one aspiring to the manners of a lady or gentleman can afford to be 
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Blood is Thicker than Water ; 

A FEW DAYS AMONG 

OUR SOUTHERN BRETHREN. 

Uy Iflenry M. 

PRICE 25 CENTS, 


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Address GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS, 

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P O Box 2781 


AYER’S 
PILLS 

are a sure cure for sick headache, liver and stomach 
troubles, dyspepsia constipation, and all kindred 
complaints. Taken in season they will break up a 
cold, prevent la grippe, check fever, and regulate the 
digestive organs. 

They received 
the highest 
honors at the 
World’s Fair. 

CURE 

“I was troubled 
a long time with 
sick headache. It 
was usually ac- 
companied with 
severe pains in 

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I hands and feet cold, and sickness at the stomach. I 
tried many remedies, but until I began taking Ayer’s 
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work for me, and I am now free from headaches and 
am a well man.”- C. H. Hutchings, E. Auburn, Me. 

SICK 

HEADACHE 

AYEE’S SAESAPAEILLA purifies tlie blood, 








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